Indian actress Shefali Shah (née Shetty; born May 22, 1973) works in theatre, television, and motion pictures. She mainly works in independent Hindi films, for which she has won numerous awards both domestically and internationally. Before making her television debut in 1993, Shah began her acting career on the Gujarati stage.
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Shefali Shah had tiny roles on television and a brief spell in the movies, including Rangeela (1995), before becoming more well-known in 1997 for her appearance in the hit series Hasratein. Lead parts in the TV shows Raahein (1999) and Kabhie Kabhie (1997) came next. She received great reviews and a Filmfare Critics Award for her supporting performance in the crime film Satya (1998). Shefali Shah then turned her attention to film acting, landing a lead in the Gujarati drama Dariya Chhoru (1999).
Over the ensuing decades, Shah was picky about the roles she took on, which led to sporadic cinema work, mostly in character roles and frequently to praise from critics. She made appearances in the mainstream comedy-drama Waqt: The Race Against Time (2005) and the international co-production Monsoon Wedding (2001).
She earned the Best Actress medal at the Tokyo International Film Festival in 2007 for her depiction of Kasturba Gandhi in the biographical movie Gandhi, My Father. She also got the National Film Award for Best Supporting Actress for the drama film The Last Lear. She went on to star in several more films, including the main role in Kucch Luv Jaisaa (2011). She also received recognition for her performance in the ensemble drama Dil Dhadakne Do (2015) and the social issue film Lakshmi (2014).
Shah’s career took off in the latter part of the 2010s when she started playing leading parts. After winning a Filmfare Short Film Award for her role in Juice (2017), she went on to work on two Netflix series: Delhi Crime (2019) and the romance drama Once Again (2018). In the latter, her portrayal as DCP Vartika Chaturvedi was well praised. Shah received further honours for five 2022 projects, which included the second season of Delhi Crime, the feature dramas Jalsa and Darlings, and the Disney+ Hotstar webseries Human. Her performance in Three of Us (2023) as a woman with early-onset dementia garnered her a nomination for the International Emmy Award for Best Actress and a second Filmfare Critics Award.
Shefali Shah Childhood And Individual Life
In Mumbai, Shefali Shetty was born on May 22, 1973. She is the sole child of Gujarati wife Shobha, a homoeopath, and Mangalorean banker Sudhakar Shetty of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI).Shah speaks Tulu, Hindi, English, Marathi, and Gujarati with ease . The family lived in the RBI quarters in Santa Cruz, Mumbai, and she went to Arya Vidya Mandir School. Although she was drawn to the arts as a young child, especially singing and dancing (she has Bharatanatyam training[9]), she had little interest in acting. When Shah was ten years old, her first acting experience took place on a Gujarati stage.
The husband of Shah’s school teacher, who was also a dramatist, asked Shah’s mother whether her daughter could portray a character that was based on Damien Thorn from The Omen (1976).With her mother’s approval, Shah performed the role; she wouldn’t take on the role again for a number of years. After finishing her education, she joined in Vile Parle’s Mithibai College and chose to study science, however she worked in theatre most of the time as a student. From 1994 till 2000, Shah was wed to television actor Harsh Chhaya.
Shefali Shah Career
Early television and theatre careers (1990–1996)
In the early 1990s, Shah’s acting career started with participation in Gujarati intercollegiate plays. She performed in a number of theatrical dramas, such as Doctor Tame Pan and Ant Vagarni Antakshari. In 1995, Rasa magazine published an article stating that Shah had demonstrated her potential to become a prominent figure in Gujarati theatre. She was approached by a cast member of the 1993 TV series Campus, who recommended that she try out for a role in one of the plays. She passed a screen test and was approved. A number of other serials followed, such as the widely-liked Zed TV programmes Tara and Banegi Apni Baat (1993–1997), as well as Doordarshan’s Naya Nukkad (1993–1994) and Zed TV’s Daraar (1994–1995).
Work on theatre and screen on an occasional basis (2008–2016)
“Those who haven’t seen Shefali Shah live have been missing out on one of this country’s greatest live entertainers. Shefali Shah captivates the audience for the duration of the two-hour play, leading them to feel as though her suffering is a reflection of their own.”
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Shah plays Roma Mathur, a Bengali activist and the wife of an Urdu professor (Anil Kapoor) in Subhash Ghai’s 2008 crime thriller Black & White. The movie centres on the couple’s friendship with a covert Islamic extremist who is preparing a suicide assault at the Red Fort. Both the performance and Shah’s received mixed reviews; Khalid Mohamed called Shah’s portrayal “unusually hammy”. Two years later, Shah’s husband Vipul cast her in his Hindi stage production, Bas Itna Sa Khwab, directed by Chandrakant Kulkarni, because she hadn’t had any significant film job that would have allowed her acting ability to be realised. It was Shah’s first performance on stage in ten years, and it was based on Kulkarni’s Marathi drama Dhyanimani.
She played a middle-class housewife opposite Kiran Karmarkar. The show moved from Rangsharda in Mumbai to Sanskritik Samagam in Ludhiana and finally to Dubai. Telling about her theatrical playing career, she described how she really connected to her role: “I have to literally break down every time, then collect the pieces and put them back together again.” In their book All the World is a Stage, authors Sunil Kant Munjal and S.K. Rai heaped acclaim on her performance.
In 2010, Shah had an appearance as a psychiatrist in the thriller Karthik Calling Karthik . The following year, Shah was chosen for the lead role in her husband’s production, Kucch Luv Jaisaa. She portrayed a young housewife who goes on a love date with Rahul Bose, a criminal on the run from jail. In order to better comprehend the experiences of her character, Shah visited the Thane Jail and spoke with the inmates in order to prepare for the role. Critics Subhash K. Jha and Mihir Fadnavis noted that Shah struggles with content that was written with little conviction when the film debuted to a mediocre reception.
Mayank Shekhar gave her a higher rating for her efforts, calling her “startlingly expressive” and praising her for radiating “the kind of vulnerability and warmth that’s rare to match”. Following a three-year hiatus, Shah made a comeback in Nagesh Kukunoor’s 2014 social issue film Lakshmi, costarring Monali Thakur as brothel madam Jyoti. Lakshmi, which is based on the actual account of a teenager who is abducted and sold into a brothel in Hyderabad, received favourable reviews from critics for its realistic portrayal of child prostitution and human trafficking. Sudhish Kamath was pleased with Shah’s portrayal of a challenging part.
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Shah costarred with Anil Kapoor as her spouse and Priyanka Chopra and Ranveer Singh as her kids in Zoya Akhtar’s comedy-drama Dil Dhadakne Do in 2015. The narrative centres on an affluent, dysfunctional family that goes on a cruise to commemorate the parents’ 30th wedding anniversary. Shah portrayed Neelam Mehra, a passive-aggressive matriarch who conceals her eating disorder and is trapped in a marriage of convenience. Though Shah was initially hesitant to play a middle-aged woman and be a mother to Chopra and Singh, she finally gave in to her husband’s advise.
Shah enjoyed the writing and the character. One of the highest-grossing Hindi films of 2015 was Dil Dhadakne Do. Critics cited a scene in particular where a visibly distraught Neelam is seen overindulging in cake in front of a mirror. Shah’s performance, according to Subhash K. Jha, was the most impactful of the ensemble cast because she “brings to her character an unfussy pitch-perfection rarely seen in mainstream cinema”. She was nominated for her third Best Supporting Actress Filmfare for the movie, and she and her co-stars took home the Stardust Award for Best Supporting Actress and the Screen Award for Best Ensemble Cast.
Shah played a small supporting role in Brothers (2015), Karan Malhotra’s adaptation of the American sports drama Warrior (2011). In flashbacks, her persona, Maria Fernandes, is shown as a mother who welcomes the child her unmarried, adulterous husband had. Reviews for the movie were ambivalent to unfavourable . Vishal Menon of The Hindu believed she had a part that needed a lot of crying, but The Hollywood Reporter thought her performance was tragic. In the Hindi version of the 2016 Disney live-action film The Jungle Book, Shah provided the voice of Raksha. In the action thriller Commando 2: The Black Money Trail, she portrayed the fictional Leena Chowdhury, the Minister of Home Affairs for India.
praise from critics in prominent positions (2017–present)
Shah starred in the 2017 short film Juice, which explored gender inequalities in Indian middle-class households. Under the direction of Neeraj Ghaywan, Shah plays Manju Singh, a lady who acts against her inconsiderate husband after spending hours in the kitchen. Positive reviews were given to the movie and Shah’s performance. She was praised by critics for her ability to convey emotions through facial expressions and gestures; Kriti Tulsiani said Shah’s “unfazed gazes convey more than words will ever say”.
At the 63rd Filmfare Awards, the movie took home two Filmfare Short Film Awards: Best Film (fiction) and Best Actress for Shah. She acknowledged Juice as the first of several films that helped advance her career in the years that followed. Shah portrayed the lead role of a middle-aged widower restaurateur in the Indo-German Netflix romance drama Once Again (2018), where she falls in love with an ageing movie star played by Neeraj Kabi.Shah described herself as “an incurable romantic” and stated that she had been waiting for a movie of that kind for a long time .
The second season of Delhi Crime, which is based on the chapter “Moon Gazer” from retired police officer Neeraj Kumar’s book Khaki Files, premiered in August 2022.193 The show debuted to excellent reviews and tackled new subjects like class bias. Shah was praised once more for his ability to bring the show together with a combination of strength and vulnerability.
Shah “seizes your attention” in her retaliation against Vartika Chaturvedi, who is “intensely serious; fearsome to her subordinates, who call her ‘Madam Sir’; and clearly burdened by her job,” according to Taylor Antrim of Vogue. Shah is “tremendous in the role.” She is a nominee for the Best Actress International Emmy Award. Shah then starred with Ayushmann Khurrana and Rakul Preet Singh in the medical comedy Doctor G, playing a rigorous doctor. For this role, Shah received a nomination for the Filmfare Award for Best Supporting Actress.
Shah plays Shailaja in the Avinash Arun-directed drama Three of Us (2023). Shailaja is a lady who, upon receiving a diagnosis of early-stage dementia, decides to travel back in time to relive her childhood and face her past. Shah stated that, in contrast to her previous roles, she had to completely immerse herself in the narrative in order to portray the character’s fragility and vulnerable state.
Critics praised the three stars’ performances in the film, which costarred Swanand Kirkire as her husband and Jaideep Ahlawat as her childhood sweetheart. Prateek Sur of Outlook called Three of Us “a masterpiece in acting” and deemed it the greatest movie of the year. According to Udita Jhunjhunwala of Mint, Shah chooses to play Shailaja with astonishment and delight reminiscent of a toddler. The actress takes ownership of the odd decision she made.” She shared the Best Actress Filmfare Critics Award with Rani Mukerji for Mrs. Chatterjee vs. Norway, which she won for her performance.
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