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Dia Mirza on Navigating Her Career Through Fear and 'Commodifying' Herself: 'Felt Cheated and Disoriented'
'I always tell this to my colleagues, who make acting as their sole medium of being: This is going to kill you,' Dia Mirza says, reflecting on her career.
Actor Dia Mirza reflects on the first decade of her acting career as a period when her film choices were driven more by "fear" instilled by the industry than her instincts. Mirza, who made her Hindi debut in 2001 with Rehnaa Hai Terre Dil Mein, saw a chaotic 2000s where she had as many as six releases a year.
Not all of them were for artistic reasons. They were for survival.
"I was younger, not financially secure, trying to find my feet, and I was also driven by fear," Mirza tells The Hollywood Reporter India as she looks back.
"That's what the industry does to you, it tells you, 'You are a woman, you have a shelf life, things will dry up and in your 40s you won't have work.' So many layers of ageism, patriarchy determine every move that you are making in that phase of your life. You have to live through it to know what a lot of crap it all was," she adds.
The actor recalls a conversation with the late actor Irrfan Khan, who complained about how artists were succumbing to the pressure of commerce to stay afloat.
"He told me, 'Yaar, when was acting ever supposed to be a business?!' When I was in that phase during which I felt compelled to be that, I felt so burnt out, cheated, lost, and disoriented. For my own sanity, I knew I couldn't live this way, it was not me. When young actors ask me, 'What do you do when you are scared?' My answer is to do things that are beyond just showing up on a set. If you have other talents and gifts, use them," she adds.
Mirza says it was only when she decided not to let fear dictate her choices that she started to transform. Today, it has become "easier" for her to say no to work than before because she is pursuing storytelling without being "enslaved by the bigger machinery, like showing up at places and constantly commodifying yourself."
The result has been a series of projects she had her heart on, including ZEE5 show Kaafir (2019), in which she played a woman from Azad Kashmir, who winds up on the Indian side of the Line-of-Control (LOC), and is held prisoner under the suspicion of being a militant. The show has now been cut into a feature-length film streaming on the platform.
"I have been through several phases of having to wait for good projects, and some of these are forced. One then has to use the time to sharpen their understanding of life and do things that can further your craft. I always tell this to my industry colleagues, who make acting as their sole medium of being: This is going to kill you."
"Because so much of being an actor is about waiting. Some of the worst decisions you make as an actor are out of fear. Fear of loss of opportunities, being out of mind and sight. Those have compelled many of us to make poor choices," she concludes.