After me, my kids are my biggest critics: Renuka Shahane

MUMBAI: The gorgeous beauty and versatile actress who has managed to woo her audiences since her Surabhi days, Renuka Shahane has once again left us speechless with her acting in an ongoing web series.

Renuka began her career in the 90s and has worked in several popular television shows in a lead role. She made us fall in love with her in Sooraj Barjatya’s Hum Aapke Hain Kaun.

Renuka has experimented with her roles and learned something from each of her characters.

She was also a part of a daily soap named Circus where she played the love interest of SRK’s character. She gave an applause-worthy performance in Imtihaan, where she played the role of a strong-willed woman to perfection.

Currently, the multitalented actress has made the audience go gaga over her role as Vandu Solanki in web series What The Folks (Dice Media Production) alongside Shishir Sharma (Kiran Solanki), Eisha Chopra (Anita Sharma) and Veer Rajwant Singh (Nikhil Solanki) in lead roles. In a candid chat with TellyChakkar, Renuka talked about her journey in the industry and threw some light on the #MeToo movement.

Read on to know more!

I well written show with a great flavour from the writer

Talking about her character in the web series Renuka shares, ‘Vandu Solanki is a very normal character, very similar to me. The way she behaves with her kids is the same way that I am with my kids in real life. The relationship that I share with my reel kids is the same as with my real kids, so that wasn’t that much of a task while playing the role.’

‘Every serial has a flavour that depicts the point of view of the writer. This determines the character and makes it easy for the actors to understand the characterization of the role they are to play. I would say that the show is really well written, and each one of us simply loved shooting for What The Folks,’ further adds the actress.

Improvisation is a part of acting, and while on sets, we all are like one big family learning from each other

When asked if there is an age to learn, Renuka shares, ‘Well, according to me, there is no age to learn. Even a kid can be wise enough to teach and explain to us things in the simplest way possible. Hence, there is no age to learn new things. The same goes with my kids in the show. It would be really hard to think of what I taught them, as generally, the seniors artist have to teach the juniors or the young talent professionalism, but in the case of our cast, nothing of this sort happened.’

‘You name the department and I can vouch for it that each one of them was simply professional and the way they worked was simply commendable,’ says Renuka.

Talking about what she learned, the versatile actress says, ‘I learned spontaneity from them. As a person, I am less spontaneous in nature, but working with the talented cast of the web series made me all the more spontaneous and gave me a fresh way to look at things.’

Talking about his son, daughter, and daughter-in-law on the show, Renuka shares, ‘Even though all three of them are great actors, but for me, the only words that come to mind while talking about Nikhil aka Veer, my reel son, is that he is very cute; Kirti Vij, my reel daughter is very loveable and caring, and Eisha aka Anita, my reel daughter-in-law, is actually very intelligent.

The way actors approach acting as a career now is different

‘I feel two elements are important for an actor. One has to maintain a good face and physique along with their acting skills. So I don’t find actors working on their looks, physique, and acting as a whole wrong. I feel if one works hard to achieve his or her goals, slowly but surely, people will compliment their hard work,’ shares Renuka.

Chuckling, she continues, ‘Well, there are a handful of actors who are stupendous in acting, blessed with stunning looks, and are hard working at the same time. I call such talents ageless or better priceless.’

Renuka concludes the same by saying, ‘For the younger generation, they are much more concerned about their looks. In our case, it’s our acting that is talked about more, but it would be wrong to say that actors of my age aren’t talking care of their health ad looks. They are totally into it.’

Renuka’s bond with Kirti and Eisha

Talking about her bond with the girl gang from What The Folks, Renuka shares, ‘There are two things that you wouldn’t ever see on the screen. One is that I used to sleep in the middle of the shoot itself. There was a chair in the girls’ room that we were sharing, and I used to sleep on the big armchair at any possible time (laughs). And the other thing not many people would know or wouldn’t get to see on the screen is that I used to get a laughter fit very often, and believe me, it is very difficult to control once I get a laughter fit.’

‘Eisha has nearly 50 videos of me when I had a laughter fit and couldn’t control it,’ she adds.

Who is your biggest critic?

‘I think I myself am the biggest critic of my work. But with time, now it’s my children also who act like critics of my work. They see my work, and if they don’t like any bit of it, they don’t hold back in sharing it. Plus I myself look at and analyze my work and try improving it with due time. I think that’s the only reason I can’t review my own work, because once I review it, then I will find some flaw or the other in it. That’s the reason I don’t go and see my own work on the monitor; else, I wouldn’t be able to shoot the next scene.’

It’s been so many years that the beauty has been a part of the industry. Talking about her journey, Renuka shares, ‘I still feel nervous and excited when I go for an audition or begin shooting for something new for that matter.’

Talking about the #MeToo movement, she shares, ‘I feel there shouldn’t be any kind of harassment that one should have to face at their work place. We are there to work and not to worry about the fact that who and how someone would misbehave with us.’

‘Why teach others to let go of things. Everyone wants a safe environment to work in. One should be judged on the work her or she does and not on how open-minded they are. Why does one need to go out on drinks and dinners to get their work noted?’

‘Knowing about Alok Nath being one of the accused wasn’t shocking at all for me. Even though I have worked with him and he is a great actor, but still, when his name was called out, it wasn’t shocking to me. Back in the 90s when i worked with him, we came to know that he has a different face where he drinks.’

‘I never faced anything bad from his end, but I had a friend, Deepika Deshpande, who told me back then only that he had misbehaved with her. I was stunned at first, but still, what happened on the sets was known to everyone out there. I am glad that this movement started, and I feel this movement should continue and whoever has suffered should come out in open.’

It was great talking to and knowing Renuka Shahane better, and we can’t wait to see the versatile actress in many more new roles.