I did do a local musical, 'Bubblin' Brown Sugar.' I played the young Sweet Georgia Brown. I was 13 years old. After that, I just decided that I had to pick one thing, acting or singing, and concentrate on that.
Vocally, I had never taken a lesson when I put out my videos. It was just a lot of fun. I had watched my dad play guitar, so I just sort of did the same thing.
I always had a separate life than just my work. I built my own family. I have my own hobbies and interests. I have a ranch with livestock and horses. I didn't always get my self-esteem and identity from acting. I never worked unless I wanted to. I never did anything just to do it, just for the paycheck. I always did things that I liked.
I think because of my background - I went through university and did an academic career and fell into acting - I've never had a game plan for my career because I got into it quite ad hoc.
I just knew I had it, but my mum and dad were always great, and it was always a thing I had but a thing that wasn't bad. It was just saying like, I have brown hair, I have brown eyes, and I've got cerebral palsy.
It's not that acting was something I'd always wanted to do. I had no formal training; I'd never really imagined I'd be an actress. Business was something that had always been in my mind, but when I got into acting, I learned everything on set, and for me at that point, I wanted to excel at what I did.
My father, a musician who worked with All India Radio, is no more. My mother had a government job at BSNL and was always opposed to my career in acting. She had seen the life my father had lived and did not like it.
I always wanted to be an actor, so I began to prepare myself for a career in acting. I did a course at Kishore Namit Kapoor's acting school. I was with Shiamak Davar's dance school and also did theatre with Nadira Babbar.
I started acting when I was 5 or so. I just did acting for fun, not actually to be an actor.
I will never forget my humble beginnings as a Laker Girl. It was probably one of the most fun jobs I ever had.
That's the career I've had - I've always had fun with the things I'm doing. At the end of the day, it's always fun.
I did something that no brown-skinned man in the movie industry ever did. I made a brown-skinned man look very romantic - a matinee idol. If you think about it, what I introduced is historical because it had never happened before, and it hasn't happened since - not on that level.
I wish I could say I had this master plan for a career, but I always thought acting was something I'd just do until I had a hit record.
Acting was something I did growing up. I never it took it too seriously; it was just one of those things I got into high school and was like, 'Nah, I don't want to continue acting.' Cause I got into it professionally by local theater, and from there, I just decided to do sports and be more a high school kid and have my fun.
I never planned my career in the film industry, in acting. Yes, I always liked acting, but never ever I thought it would be my profession. I wanted to study, since my family has an academic background.
I've taken a few public hits in my career, and I never hid the pain of it from my children. Nor did I hide the regrouping and rethinking that occurred after each one. After all, that process allowed me to re-emerge and go on to build a more impactful - and more engaging - career path than the one I had been knocked off of.