Every year, scores of people hop, skip, and jump to Bollywood to realize their dream of becoming a megastar in the city of dreams. While some end up topping the roaster, others have to work hard for decades to finally be recognized by their full name.
Today, we take a look at the story of one such artist who went through major highs and lows in her acting career but finally made it to the 77th Cannes Film Festival along with her film. Read on!
Meet Sunita Rajwar who once quit acting and now went to Cannes 2024
She started her career as a theatre artist and then featured in the popular TV show CID. From there, Sunita Rajwar’s journey as a TV and Bollywood actor started. The audience felt her presence when she shared the screen with popular television actress Hina Khan in the daily soap Yeh Rishta Kya Kehlata Hai.
Rajwar made her acting debut with a minor role in the comedy-drama film Main Madhuri Dixit Banna Chahti Hoon. However, years later, she was nominated for an award for her supporting role in Ek Chalis Ki Last Local. But slowly, she was typecast in the Hindi film industry and was offered the role of maid.
While talking to a media outlet she shared that at one point in her career, she thought she would enter the Guinness Book of World Records as an actor who only played the role of maid her entire career. Looking at the ill-treatment and the disrespect that character artists like her were subjected to, she quit acting for two years, got her CINTAA card canceled, and managed Masaba Gupta.
But it was senior actress Neena Gupta who convinced her in a way to return to cinema. Then in 2018, we saw her as Daddo in Sushant Singh Rajput and Sara Ali Khan’s Kedarnath followed by Stree starring Rajkummar Rao, Shraddha Kapoor, Pankaj Tripathi, Aparshakti Khurana and Abhishek Banerjee.
Her other Bollywood projects include Bala, Shubh Mangal Zyada Saavdhan, and more. Sunita Rajwar has also taken the OTT scene with her role in Gullak for which she won an award for Supporting Actress in a Comedy series. If you have watched the TV series Panchayat, then you would remember her as Kranti Devi.
During a conversation with Brut India, she revealed that actors who do small roles are not respected, are not paid well, and are treated like animals. Highlighting the treatment the lead and characters get from the crew she stated that while stars get a solo room, actors like her have a small dingy room. “They will make 3–4 people sit there. The roof is falling down. No clean bathroom. Your bedsheet will be dirty. Seeing all this, I always felt so bad,” she added.
Currently, she is all over social media for representing India at the 77th Cannes Film Festival with her movie Santosh which had its world premiere in the Un Certain Regard section, earlier this month. Hours ago, in a post on social media, the 54-year-old revealed that she is the daughter of a truck driver and if someone from a small town can end up representing her country on an international platform, then anyone can. She will be next seen in the third season of Panchayat on May 28 and Gullak 4 on June 7.
