Himani Shivpuri recalls her shooting days

Veteran actor Himani Shivpuri, who is a known face across Indian cinema and theatre, and has acted in classics like 'Kuch Kuch Hota Hai' and 'Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge', says she used to "live, breathe and just do theatre" while she was a student at the National School of Drama (NSD).

These days, Shivpuri is being seen in Zee Theatre's teleplay 'Hamidabai Ki Kothi', which is a period drama. She plays Hamidabai, a spirited artist of the dying Kothi tradition, determined to not let the demands of popular culture corrupt her establishment despite societal and financial pressure.

Himani shares, "To get into any character the process is the same whether it is a stage or screen. The detailing that I follow is I gather all the information from the script or with the discussion I do in detail with the director while on the sets to understand the characteristics of the role that I will be playing. That's how one gets into the character but the most important part I feel is to go through the script thoroughly.I don't think there's any difference. There are two kinds – good or bad acting. For good acting you need to put in some effort, be spontaneous, and work hard to appear effortless and bad acting you don't need any effort, you can be as bad as you like."

She adds further, "As far as theatre going digital is concerned, I feel it is a good move. Especially in this current situation, it is very tough for theatre to survive. I am glad that this concept has come up. I have done some wonderful plays but there are no records of those plays except for some brochures or photos. Sometimes even the photographs are destroyed. I remember once there was a fire, beautiful photos of our plays were burnt. With the digital medium, there is a record of plays. Though I prefer the live performance that I use to do in front of a live audience because that gives me the thrill to perform, the response of the live audience is amazing."

However, looking at the current situation she feels it was a great alternative as people are not stepping out from their home so one can enjoy watching all the teleplays sitting at home.

During the pandemic, she discovered that she loved being with herself as she hardly used to get time for herself while she was shooting. During the lockdown, she did yoga, she learned to meditate and learned the Sudarshan Kriya which she has been wanting to do for a long time.

She wrote few poems and tried to write some of her memoirs and figured that she is a very lazy writer but now is glad that she got time to spend with herself.

She also watched films, TV shows on the OTT platform and enjoyed being with family and her dog Arya.