Nitu Chandra Srivastava made her Hollywood debut recently in ‘Never Back Down – Revolt’. The film has now premiered in India, and it has become the talk of the town on social media. The actress whose diverse work repertoire includes films like Garam Masala, Traffic Signal, Oye Lucky Lucky Oye, One Two Three among others gets candid about why she went on to do a Hollywood film, the challenges she faced and her Bollywood comeback project.
Talking about if things have changed for her post-Hollywood debut Nitu shares, “I don’t think much has changed in Bollywood for me in terms of making a Hollywood debut because acceptance of you going and doing Hollywood film doesn’t really matters to anyone here. I feel that it has not got me the kind of acknowledgment I thought I’ll get if I go work there and prove myself that I can work in different languages. People really didn’t acknowledge or took notice of it that much and then they ask how did it happened. Then I explain them that it’s a Sony studio film and I’m playing a lead which is not just a blink and miss role streaming on Amazon Prime. So not much has changed as I feel people refused to take a notice of it. That is why I had to go all out to make opportunities for myself because there was no team, camp or anything for me I had to do it all by myself to make things happen for me in Hollywood and even here.
She continues about her upcoming Hollywood films and said that this is just a start and she’ll keep making things happen which she has always done. She got 2 more projects from Hollywood for now, and she is very happy and proud that she could bag them.
Speaking about why she decided to try her luck in Hollywood the Garam Masala actress tells, “My reason to go ahead and start looking for work in Hollywood was that I was literally shunned out of lot of projects in Bollywood. I was out 6 to 7 projects which I signed in the past without even knowing the reason. And such things kept on happening. So I thought that if I have to fight here only then why not go globally and fight hard to make happen it for me. Since I don’t come from any background, so I had to start from scratch. I come from a middle-class family of Bihar who came to Mumbai and started hustling to make career.”
Despite having worked with great directors and big actors from Industry, making a Hollywood debut was not a easy decision or a cake walk for Nitu chandra.
She said,” I’ve worked with 13 National award-winning directors, 3 National award winning movies, also became a producer; after doing all these I had to start from zero to make it into Hollywood without a single person’s support. I’m not a star kid neither do I come from any film background so it has always been challenging for me to make a mark. Also, I was not getting the kind of work I wanted in Bollywood. Due to which, I was quite depressed and my relative and family started saying that we are not seeing bollywood people casting you in any capacity. Hence, I had to go all out not restricting myself only to bollywood, I also did my first Greek film called Block 12 after which my journey to Hollywood began.”
Lastly, adding about her upcoming bollywood project she says,”You’ll soon see be in Bollywood and south. People still remember me from Oye Lucky Lucky Oye, Garam Masala, Traffic Signal and even my south film with Surya. I’ve pan India fan following and they love me because they keep telling me to come back. I’ve a project lined up under post production.”