After making a striking impact with her haunting performance in 1920 and balancing it with mainstream films like Hasee Toh Phasee and Commando 2 & 3, Adah Sharma has carved a career that refuses to fit a template. At a time when box office numbers dominate conversations, she is more interested in the emotional afterlife of her performances than the Friday figures they open to.
Reflecting on how her idea of success has evolved, the actress says, “People don’t come up to you and say, ‘Hi, your film made 375 crores, I’m emotionally moved.’ They say, ‘I cried in that scene when you were crying’ or ‘I was so scared of you.’ That, to me, is the biggest compliment. When audiences remember characters across such different spaces, you realise they are not tracking your Friday collections; they are carrying your performances with them. Box office is influenced by many factors such as timing, marketing, trends and even the weather. As an actor, you can only control how honest you are in a scene. That said, it does feel wonderful when films perform well commercially, it simply means more people get to experience what I have created.”
Speaking about her choices across genres, Adah who has acted in films like 1920, Hasee Toh Phasee, Commando 2 & 3, and The Kerala Story and will be next seen in Governor: The Silent Saviour alongside Manoj Bajpayee, says, “I have explored very different spaces, from an innocent student to a bold, almost sleazy woman who might be a murderer, as well as projects that are entirely fictional, where logic takes a backseat and imagination takes over. However, when I am performing, none of it feels fake. I believe I am the character, whether it is a murderer, a cop or a soldier, because for them, it is real. Even fiction works if the emotion connects.”
Talking about how she measures the impact of a role, she says, “I don’t sit with a notebook thinking, ‘This role will change society, this one will win awards, this one will trend on Instagram.’ The moment you plan impact, it starts feeling fake, and the audience can sense that. For me, it begins with whether the role changes me even a little. If a character makes me uncomfortable or pushes me into a space I haven’t explored before, that is already impacting me first. For the audience, I leave it open. I don’t want to control how they feel. It is interesting when different people connect with different scenes in their own way.”
