Hollywood Dreaming

“The role just happened to me,” Chaudhari insists on repeating the cliché. But she does mention that winning an award was the last thing on her mind when she got back to acting after a hiatus. “The most important thing was to get noticed. And that happened. I even managed to produce and direct my own 17-minute short film,Orange Blossom,that won a Silver Ace Award for Best Short Film at the Las Vegas Film Festival,” she says.

Chaudhari is all praise for the television serial and movie making traditions followed in the US,that everything is planned right down to the last detail. “Even if it’s a pilot project,a web-based one or a studio production,they double check everything. The discipline associated with the process is its best part,” she says. Having won plaudits at her initial steps in the entertainment industry in LA,Chaudhuri now has bigger plans. And she is ready to take her last appearance on the cancelled NBC series Outsourced into her stride. “It helped me connect to the people involved in the business. Networking became easier and I also got a membership to the AFTRA (American Federation of Television and Radio Artists),which is huge.”

Chaudhari is currently working on directing and producing her second film as an independent film maker. There are plans for a cross-over television show too,involving producers from India and American actors of Indian-origin. “Everything is still in the conceptualisation stage and it’s too early to predict anything. It would be a different ball game altogether if all works out well,” she smiles.