After nearly 15 years in the industry, Sonakshi Sinha says the only way she has stayed grounded is by being authentic: “A lot of actors are misguided, believing they are something that they are not.
But if I can show myself authentically to someone, why not? If you keep up a façade, your whole energy is spent in keeping up with it. Main kharch nahin hona chahti uss tarah se.”
That same thought drives her latest experiment with fans -a YouTube channel. While long-form content was unfamiliar to her. Sonakshi Sinha says the platform gave her space to connect in an unfiltered way. “When you find something that doesn’t feel like work or pressure, it becomes fun,” she notes.
The actor adds that having the choice of what to put out is liberating. “Although people might feel I am putting my whole life out there, I’m actually not. I’m putting out only how much I want to. It’s a small part of me, it’s not all my life,” she says, adding, “Basically YouTube is like my new PR. I’m actually projecting myself the way I want to be projected and not how people want to see me or somebody wants to show me. This is me and I love that.”
A regular on her videos is her husband, actor Zaheer Iqbal whose easy-going approach has also changed her attitude towards the paparazzi. “I don’t want to get clicked when I go out because that’s my time. But with Zaheer, I’ve my time. become a more welcoming person. His attitude is: instead of cribbing, let’s take a pic and leave with a smile. He is a very positive person. I’ve become nicer to (paps) because of Zaheer.” she admits.
On the work front, Sonakshi was last seen in her brother Kussh S Sinha’s directorial debut Nikita Roy. Working under him, she says, didn’t blur professional boundaries: “You go on set as an actor, and there is a person to direct you; that could be anyone. Here, it happened to be my brother. So, I looked at him in that way, like he’s my director and I am his actor.”