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Actor Ridhima Pandit on TV comeback: I wanted to come back with a damdaar role
Ridhima Pandit plays the unpredictable vamp Lata in Ufff...Yeh Love Hai Mushkil — a role she says she had been manifesting for years
Actor Ridhima Pandit is making her television comeback after five years, this time stepping into uncharted territory as an antagonist. She plays the unpredictable vamp Lata in Ufff...Yeh Love Hai Mushkil — a role she says she had been manifesting for years: “I have been wanting to play such a character for a while. I even remember asking makers on social media to give me a chance to play a hardcore vamp. Now it’s happening. Itne saal baad, I just want people to hate my character.”
Ridhima admits the long break from television wasn’t by choice. “My TV break was never planned. The first two years went into the pandemic, and after that I wanted to come back with a damdaar role. Else what’s the use of waiting,” she says. But the wait wasn’t easy: “There were times I cried myself to sleep because I wasn’t getting my choice of work. I just want to act and do meaningful work.”
Speaking about casting in the industry, she stresses on the importance of auditions. “Why can’t selections be done in the most natural way — through auditions? Outsiders always have to face the hard side of selection. Too often casting depends on yaari-dosti, social media following or references, which is why the same people keep getting repeated. There’s no imagination. I’m half Maharashtrian and half Gujarati, fluent in both languages, so why not cast people like me when the role demands it? Hum sab toh nahin marr gaye hain,” she says.
Ridhima also weighed in on the recent debate over actors faking accents. “This is the problem — why not cast someone who already has the required skills?” she adds.
On a parting note, Ridhima shares more about joining the show Uff…: 'It never felt like I was a new add-on to the cast. The way my co-stars, Shabir (Ahluwalia) and Ashi (Singh), welcomed me was so overwhelming
