Seema Pahwa: It’s great to have won awards for my very first directorial

Actor-director Seema Pahwa is glad to have explored direction for the first time in her 54-year-old acting career

Actor-director Seema Pahwa is glad to have explored direction for the first time in her 54-year-old acting career.

Seema Pahwa

“Direction was particularly never on my mind but as I was associated with different aspects of film making, I was surely aware of this facet too. I had written a couple scripts and shared them with my director friends — particularly the story of Ramprasad ki Tehrvi (2022). My friends were quick to respond that as it was my brainchild so I should take the call and that’s how I donned the director’s hat for the first time. And, the icing on the cake was to have won awards for my very first project.” says the Bala (2019) and Gangubai Kathiawadi (2022) actor.

Pahwa started her career as a child artiste in 1968. “Since then, it has been acting always. How days passed by and today I am getting to work in the industry where all sorts of stories are being written and character artistes are no more sidelined. In fact, they are part of the story in a big way and the characters too are crafted with equal diligence.”

Married to actor Manoj Pahwa, the Bareilly ki Barfi (2017) actor shares that the two of them have a lot to discuss when it comes to acting and projects. “Of course, we have long discussions and as my children too are in the same field, so such creative discourses are frequent in our house. But yes, when I took up direction all of them let me be. Manojji too asked me to play the new role the way I wished too.”

Pahwa has been part of numerous films and shows in her five-decade old career and surely has her favourites among them.

“I have played almost all type of roles and luckily got a chance to live the Navras on screen. Of late roles like Sheela in Gangubai... and Ganga Devi in Jamtara-2 (2022) gave me a larger canvas to explore that grey zone in my personality to its fullest. But, my favourite remains Ankhon Dekhi (2014).”

The award-winning actor plans to direct again. “Yes, I have a script ready and if all goes well, I’ll soon start my next directorial that too in Lucknow, like my earlier film. As this city is like my second home so my stories can be better told and developed here,” Pahwa concludes.