Lata Kutty has a fun and quirky side, something I hadn’t explored on screen: Shalini Vatsa
Once a reluctant film actor, Shalini Vatsa explored her comic potential with Ludo this year and found acclaim
A decade since her first film, Vatsa still periodically asks herself whether she is enjoying what she does. First Role: In Class IX, Shalini Vatsa acted in Yahan Bande Saste Milte Hain, staged at Patna’s Kalidas Rangalaya
Standout Act: Playing nurse Lata Kutty in Ludo on Netflix
Shalini Vatsa’s journey charted its own course. Her Lata Kutty, who transforms from a no-nonsense nurse into gangster Sattu’s (Pankaj Tripathi) doting lover in Anurag Basu’s Ludo (released in November), has “a fun and quirky side”. She plays Lata Kutty with great comic flair, fitting into Ludo’s whimsical world effortlessly. This character “was something I hadn’t explored on screen so far” and was “very different from my previous strong-women roles in Sacred Games (2018-19) and Gurgaon (2016),” says the actor who had been uncertain about a film career for years. Her first film role, as Dhaniya (in Peepli [Live], 2010), was to have been her last. Then she landed a small but significant role as domestic worker Gauri in Shanghai (2012). But her desire to continue acting in movies developed only after the Hansal Mehta-directed Shahid (2012), in which she played Prosecutor Tambe. “People talk of having a wish list. Even without having one, I’ve worked with the directors who would have featured on my list,” she says.
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