Harleen Sethi reveals she will never again make the mistake of choosing quantity over quality. She adds that she has learnt to be patient for good work.
In 2013, Harleen Sethi made her acting debut in the short film Country Of Bodies: Bombay In Dance. She gained notoriety in 2018 because to the web series Broken But Beautiful. She is now enjoying the popularity of her most recent film, Kohrra, which is available for streaming on Netflix. She has received acclaim for her portrayal of Nimrat, a lady attempting to leave an uncomfortable marriage, who also has a difficult connection with her father and tries to live life on her own terms.
Since her patience has been put to the test recently, she has agreed to a lot of initiatives. “I choose my projects carefully. This field helps you develop patience. I performed in two or three shows last year because I really wanted to. But whenever I had free time, I also performed in other concerts in between them to fill the voids. I did certain things for the money, and I did some things because I got to work with a great team,” she reflects.
But this hasn’t always been her mindset. Following the success of Broken But Beautiful, she had made up her mind to only do quality work but it was the pandemic that led her to take some very different decisions. “After Broken But Beautiful, I was very patient and I wanted to only focus on doing good work. But after two seasons, I was sitting at home due to Covid and I got impatient. I just wanted to be on a set, enjoy myself and do all kinds of work knowing fully well that some will be good and some won’t,” she shares candidly.
Harleen, however, through experience realised that the idea to do more work as opposed to meaningful work isn’t the right call to take and Kohrra reinforced the thought. She tells us, “After doing all of that, this year, I realised that you can’t do everything because that takes a toll on you, emotionally. From the end of last year till now, I’ve hardly done anything because I don’t have anything left in me. To do a show like Kohrra and play a character like Nimrat take a lot out of you and is very draining. I realised that I’m not going to repeat the same mistake.”
In an industry that’s largely driven by competition and insecurities, Harleen has now come to understand that being choosy and not pushing herself too hard is key. Talking about it, she opines, “It’s not necessary to work during any break that you get. It’s important to do good work even if you do less work because it’s an emotional job. It’s not just physically taxing but emotionally too to put yourself into a new character.”
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