“I feel like being called ‘niche’ is actually a compliment.” Monkey man star Sobhita Dhulipala tells Deadline.
It’s nighttime in India when we meet the star and discuss a recent profile that calls her a “niche Indian actress.”
“In India, there’s a conventional idea of a mainstream commercial film star loving you because you entertain him and give him a chance to escape, but as an actor you’re not really responsible for standing up for anything,” she explains. “I think my expectations for a different type of actor making films that reach my heart and travel with me would be somehow more personal, and that’s kind of niche.”
Dhulipala’s choice of roles reflects this mentality. She was born in the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh and pursued the career path that leads from beauty pageants to acting, a path followed by Priyanka Chopra, Aishwarya Rai and others. She dropped out of corporate law to represent India at Miss Earth 2013 and then made her acting debut in acclaimed director Anurag Kashyap’s psychological crime thriller Raman Raghav 2.0.
“I feel like I’m seen as someone who’s more ‘alternative,’ for lack of a better word,” says Dhulipala, using the air quotes of “alternative” around the world.
Although she has appeared in several Telugu, Malayalam and Tamil films, this was her most prominent role to date Monkey man was probably seen as wedding planner Tara Khanna in Prime’s videos Made in heaven. The vengeful, sometimes conniving and selfish character isn’t particularly likable, but over the course of three seasons she becomes one to root for.
‘Monkey Man’
Sobhita Dhulipala in Monkey Man.
Even before these roles came about, Dhulipala had auditioned for the role of Sita Monkey mana first directing project for Slumdog Millionaire Star Dev Patel. After an extensive audition, she got the role in 2019 and the project was shot on an island in Indonesia during the lockdown. It took another four years for the film, co-produced by Jordan Peele, to be released worldwide.
A neo-noir action thriller starring Patel, which has grossed more than $30 million at Universal’s global box office to date Monkey man follows the protagonist Kid, whose community is attacked as a child. Inspired by stories about the Hindu monkey god Hanuman, he sets out to protect the disadvantaged and seek revenge. Dhulipala plays a relatively small but crucial role as a prostitute who is exploited in the brothel where Kid ends up working. Patel has previously said that Dhulipala is not only “stunningly beautiful” but also “tolerates pain well as a performer.”
Dhulipala goes into raptures when asked if Monkey man changed her life. “Would it even be published? Where? Who would publish it? “I never thought it would be born one day in such a beautiful way,” she says. “I can take my film to Chinese cinemas and SXSW, that’s how it is [John Lennon] Song, right? Life is what happens to you while you are busy making other plans.”
The global attention is somewhat new for Dhulipala, who describes herself as an introvert who is comfortable “living under a rock because it’s humid and cozy.” “My reaction to social life is often to withdraw in some way. So when I have to talk about myself or my journey, I just think, ‘Uh, so I lived, and um, I got typhoid last year. I don’t know.” She laughs. “Do I need to add anything special?”
At a time when streaming has increasingly thrust country-specific actors into the Hollywood spotlight, Dhulipala’s journey has been a little different than that of predecessors like Priyanka Chopra and Deepika Padukone. For one, she has worked in several Indian film industries, not just Bollywood. She remembers a panel discussion with her co-stars from the Hindi adaptations of The night manager. The presenter had asked a question that subtly alluded to the fact that she was South Indian but worked in the North Indian Bollywood industry. “I think the host was just being cheeky, but I don’t know – if I travel to another country, I’m Indian. When I am in India, I am a South Indian. In South India, I speak neither Malayalam nor Tamil, but Telugu. But on the other hand, I don’t come from Telangana, but from Andhra Pradesh,” she says, discussing regional peculiarities.
“Where can I be a human being? Maybe in a lab,” she adds.
Dhulipala’s frustrations sound very similar to those previously expressed by her co-star Patel, who was born in the UK to Indian parents who were themselves born in Kenya. In an interview with The Guardian in 2021 about typecasting and representation, Patel said: “Where am I allowed to exist?” How specific are we going to get with this? What does it mean to be an actor – to just be yourself? Can I only play a man who is 31 years old? Will you check my blood type?”
Dhulipala also rails against stereotypes. “When people say ‘India,’ they usually think of ‘Tandoori’ and ‘Balle Balle,'” she says, referring to the lively songs and dances from the Punjab region. “But there is such a beautiful cultural density. So when someone asks me about India, I just say, ‘Do you have 15 minutes?’ Because yes, it is a lot, here is the complete information about GPT style chat.’”
Although she is a self-confessed introvert, the fact that she has worked in various film industries has made her transition to Hollywood easier. This came in handy on the set of Monkey man, which experienced more than its fair share of chaos. Patel shared in a Reddit post that filming during Covid-19 was an “absolute disaster” every day and broken bones, blisters and closed borders on set had become the norm. “I think they did five days of work every day in one day,” Dhulipala recalls. “And we ate the same thing for months.”
“We didn’t even know if anyone wanted to buy it, so it was a crazy, beautiful energy just focused on doing.”
Despite being set in an Indian context, Dev Patel’s tender directorial is yet to release in the country amid industry buzz over a number of other delayed Bollywood releases. Many suspect this is because the film criticizes the nationalist sentiment espoused by the current government, but Dhulipala is cautious. “It’s very perspective-oriented, isn’t it?” she says. “I could be put off by something that is completely normal for you and you think I’m overreacting and vice versa.”
She adds: “I feel like it depends very, very much on a person’s personal belief system and judgment and who that person is, who the people are and who is judging the release. “It’s up to them, it’s just me a small fish.
This feeling, which Dhulipala so aptly encapsulates, seems to be an integral part of being a niche actor.