Shefali Shah ‘Put Powder In Hair’ To Convince Vipul Shah For Waqt Role: ‘He Said It’ll Misfire’ | Exclusive

What many thought would become a turning point in Shefali Shah’s career proved to be the prelude to a period of lull. In Waqt, at 28, she played mother to Akshay Kumar, who’s more than five years older

than her. Needless to say, the industry – known for its rampant culture of dishing out age-inapt roles for female actors – typecast her to such an extent that she only began receiving roles of women much older than her. She began refusing work and decided to not work for a while if that’s what it meant.

Now, speaking exclusively to News18 Showsha, Shefali reveals that it was she who had insisted her director husband Vipul Amrutlal Shah on wanting to do the role despite his apprehensions and reluctance. “Vipul told me to not do Waqt and that it wouldn’t be the right decision for me. But I was like, ‘No, but I love the part and I love the script.’ It’s based on a play done by a very, very dear friend of mine. When I read the script, I thought it was beautiful and I wanted to be a part of it,” she recalls.

According to her, sharing screen space with Amitabh Bachchan was a temptation she couldn’t tame. “And then there was Mr Bachchan in the film. I wanted to work with two of my favourite men – Mr Bachchan and Vipul. I felt like everything was perfect. But Vipul told me that doing the film would misfire,” she tells us. In fact, it was Big B who had recommended Shefali to play his wife in the film.

Talking about how she finally convinced Vipul to rope her in, Shefali remarks, “It was Amit ji who told him, ‘Why haven’t you thought of Shefali for this part?’ Vipul told him that I’m probably too young for it and that I may not be able to match up to him. Then I put powder in my hair and told, ‘See, I can look old.’ I kept telling him, ‘Please please, I want to do this film.’ That’s how the film happened to me.”

She may have had to turn down some offers post Waqt but she doesn’t regret her decision. “There’s very, very little that I look back on and have an alternate thought on because it’s pointless. Shefali – at that point of time, at that age, in that mindset – thought that this was the right thing to do and she did it. What I think about it today is not of any consequence. Also, as an actor, I believed that the point of being an actor is to play characters that are totally unlike me,” she says.

However, it taught her a lesson. “I didn’t bother about the caste, creed, age or even the gender of a character. I didn’t see a problem in playing the part that I did in Waqt. I didn’t understand back then that it’s not how cinema, particularly commercial cinema, works. So, would she play a mother to a male superstar in his 60s today? “No, absolutely not (laughs),” the Delhi Crime and Darlings actor exclaims.