Theatre’s a kind of addiction, says Ira Dubey

Last seen in M Cream, Ira Dubey plays Alia Bhatt’s bestie in the much-awaited Dear Zindagi that released on Friday. An established theatre artiste, Ira says that the Gauri Shinde film happened to her quite unexpectedly. “Most of the people in the film were already cast and Gauri was looking for the right person to play Alia’s sister. I did a test with the casting director and she loved it. And then, once I met Gauri, I was sure I wanted to do the film. It was only much later that I came to know that the film also had Alia Bhatt and Shah Rukh Khan,” she says.

Ira’s look in the film is bohemian — one the audience haven’t seen her in before. Shedding light on her character of Fatima she adds, “She is a married lady living in Mumbai, who works in the film industry. Getting under the skin of someone who works off camera was an interesting aspect for me. My character helps Alia’s character grounded when she is going through ups and downs.”

Ira comes from a family of theatre aficionados; her mother Lillete Dubey owns a theatre company too. Ira’s longest running play, 9 Parts of Desire has completed over 300 shows and the actress feels she is constantly juggling mediums to maintain a balance with regard to her work. “I started doing theatre at a very young age. It’s a kind of an addiction you can’t get away from — the kind of experience you build while performing live in front of an audience, gives you a sense of spontaneity; you shed inhibitions when you finally get in front of the camera,” she adds.

Does the actress exchange notes with her mother about her work? “No! I don’t. My mom has given my sister and me a lot of freedom to evolve, make our choices and let us learn from our own mistakes. Till date, my mom keeps calling and checking on me, with her only questions being, who are you with and when are you coming home,” she chuckles.

Coming back to the film, Ira doesn’t share screen space with Shah Rukh in Dear Zindagi. But she did get a chance to interact with him and that was enough to impress the fan girl. “I was always nudging Gauri till the very end asking her to put us together in one scene at least,” she laughs.

Interestingly, her mother and SRK go back a long way. “He has known my mum since the time they were in college. My mum way back in the 80s, made an Indian version of The Sesame Street starring Shah Rukh, but it never saw the light of day. They were also in the theatre group at one point. Hopefully I’ll be sharing screen space with him soon,” she signs off.