For Anasuya Sengupta, Cannes was not the finish line. A year after making history as the first Indian actor to win the Best Actress award in the Un Certain Regard section at the Cannes Film Festival for The Shameless, she is already looking ahead. Her next project takes her into international territory once again, this time alongside actor Dev Patel in The Peasant.
The film, the first in India to be backed by the production house A24, was the kind of opportunity that Sengupta says was difficult to believe at first. “The opportunity seemed too good to be true,” she says, “I really admire what Dev has been doing for the past several years. With Dev being the captain of the ship, it was such an exciting opportunity.”
Patel, meanwhile, is doing much more than sitting in the director’s chair. He stars in the film and is also one of its producers, making him a constant presence on both sides of the camera. For Sengupta, watching him juggle these roles was part of the fun. “He wears so many hats,” she says. “I’ve had the pleasure of not just being directed by him, but also partnering with him in several scenes. I don’t know if I enjoyed him as a co-actor more or as a director more—I think it’s both!”
What stayed with her most, however, was his enthusiasm for the project. “It was interesting to see him with the cast. We were lucky to imbibe his level of passion.”
For an actor who has recently stepped into the international spotlight, working on a film backed by A24 also offered a glimpse into a different filmmaking culture. “The kind of faith and belief that they put in the director is definitely unusual. You don’t always get to see that.”
Sengupta’s journey to this point has been anything but conventional. Long before she was walking the Cannes red carpet, she was working behind the camera. She came to Mumbai with dreams of becoming an actor, but ended up spending nearly 15 years immersed in the machinery of filmmaking—as a director’s assistant, an assistant director, and later in production design. Now, she sees those years as an unexpected advantage. “It’s helped me understand the craft inside out in a very unconventional way,” she says. “Now when I’m on set as an actor, I can feel that having been involved so deeply in the process of filmmaking has given me some sort of ammunition.”
The Cannes win could easily have pushed Sengupta towards a particular kind of cinema or a string of international projects. Instead, she wants to keep the possibilities open. “I am an artiste who does not like to put boundaries upon myself. Right now, I’m hungry and keen to do all kinds of roles,” she says, “But I’m very keen on doing action.” Whether the opportunity comes from India or abroad doesn’t matter. “I’m open to taking up a good role as long as it moves me.”