When it comes to picking new projects, Pallavi Sharda finds community to be as big a motivator as career.
The actor and writer has worked on a steady stream titles throughout the past few years, showcasing her range across a variety of genres.
She will next be seen in Tom Dey’s Netflix rom-com Wedding Season as Asha, a young professional of Indian heritage who pretends to date a suitor of her mother’s choosing in order to survive a summer of weddings. However, the pair end up falling for each other as they struggle to balance who they are with who their parents want them to be.
Written by Shiwani Srivastava, the New Jersey-set film was produced by Swati Shetty, Tony Hernandez and John Hodges, with shooting taking place in Toronto last year.
Sharda, whose own grandparents migrated to the US in 1980s, told IF the story resonated with her on multiple levels.
“For me, that particularity of an Indian family who lives in Jersey is so close to my heart because all of my cousins grew up on the east coast of the US and I spent my childhood going there,” she said.
“I also love shedding light on the specificity of the Indian diaspora globally or the South Asian diaspora, and just bringing light and shade into the narrative of what it is to be a South Asian woman, or person who grows up outside of India or South Asia generally. I do think in general, the Western gaze operates to create a monolith out of that identity.”
It’s a perspective Sharda has been able to draw from throughout her career, having grown up in Australia, before leaving for Bollywood at the age of 20 to pursue acting opportunities.
In the past 4-5 years, she has built a successful screen career in her country of birth, starring in projects such as Garth Davis’ Lion and television series Pulse, Les Norton, and Retrograde, as well as international titles ranging from 18th century period drama Beechum House and family feature Tom and Jerry.
Prior to travelling to Toronto to film Wedding Season, she was on the Gold Coast to take on the role of a Delta Force operative in Sophia Banks’ directorial debut Black Site, which follows a group of officers based in a labyrinthine top-secret CIA black site who must fight for their lives as they come up against Hatchet, an infamous high-value detainee.
Sharda said the action thriller was another opportunity to showcase the versatility that had become her “main unique selling proposition”.
“I grew up performing and I’m a classical Indian dancer, so I have a lot of agility in my body.
“My journey to becoming an actress was like an odyssey and it’s given me this kind of plethora of storytelling within my own journey to kind of draw upon and I also love being able to use my body, so Black Site was just a no brainer for me.”
The performer pivoted yet again towards the end of last year to play troubled jury foreperson Corrie alongside Brooke Satchwell, Hazem Shammas, and Brendan Cowell in Foxtel’s courtroom drama, The Twelve, currently airing.
One of 12 tasked with deciding the case of a woman accused of killing a child, Corrie also suffers from PTSD, with her backstory revealing a drama with her family’s business.
Sharda admitted the character raised a number of cultural questions for her.
“There’s a layer of her personality, which is expressed through promiscuity, and as a woman of Indian heritage, that was incredibly challenging because obviously, themes like that are quite taboo in the culture that I come from,” she said.
“I had to really overcome a lot of societal blocks and barriers and be quite courageous in order to play that on screen believably.
“It also comes with the challenge of having to explain to the makers what you’re bringing to the table and the baggage that you have to carry through that character, as well the responsibility that you’re carrying as you go through that journey of representation.”
She added that the accuracy of a character’s backstory was just as important as that of the scripted material.
“I really want to do justice to the people in that community who are watching and to not feel like some slapdash job has been done in order for the optics of diversity.
“Recently, [I’ve been in discussions] talking about the transition from diversity optics to diversity actualisation and the burden is very, very heavy on the people cast in those roles to protect our cultures and to make sure that scripts are not reducing them.”
Her advocacy goes well beyond the realm of acting, with Sharda hosting a Q&A with Kurdish-Iranian journalist Behrouz Boochani, director Simon V Kurian and Senator Nick McKim at the premiere of Kurian’s documentary Behrouz earlier this month, the discussion of which centred on the stories that are being told out of Manus Island Detention prison.
She is also in the midst of writing a feature film and a series with international writers, as well as preparing for the release of her book.
Sharda said was keen to use her own story to encourage new ways of intercultural thinking.
“I’m still very cognisant that many of the skills that I have come from having grown up here. Much of my mindset is from the open-mindedness of how I grew up in Melbourne and the intercultural activity that was possible in those years,” she said.
“So it’s about just saying, ‘Okay, how do we actually actualise that for someone’s entire life?’
“Aspirational thinking shouldn’t be limited to othered communities only in their schooling years; they should be able to go through life feeling like they’re not taking up too much space.”
Wedding Season is released on Netflix on August 4.