Juhi Babbar Soni: There was a time when the heroine had just four scenes and three songs in a film - Exclusive

Juhi Babbar Soni’s contribution to her theatre productions is multi-dimensional. She is a producer, playwright, director and actor all rolled into one. In the 90-minute play With Love Aap Ki Saiyaara, Juhi has an 80-minute acting performance. She routinely receives standing ovations for her performance.

An indictment of society's oppression against women, the play has surprise appearances of Dharmendra and Zarina Wahab as her parents shown through video calls. The play has received critical acclaim and has Juhi counted among top theatre and stage actors in the country.

Juhi's talents extend to films, too. Just like her father Raj Babbar and brother Aarya Babbar she has worked in movies. She is all praise for Hansal Mehta's recent release Faraaz, a story about a 19-year-old from the most affluent family of Bangladesh who is killed in a Dhaka café taken over by terrorists. Outside the cafe, his mother, played by Juhi Babbar, does a brilliant job in shouting and ordering military generals and soldiers to save her son. Some reviewers have even named her as the best part of the film. She adds: “I also spoke to the boy’s mother on video calls. Talking to her and seeing her strength, courage, and the expression in her face, the pride in her eyes stayed with me; there was a calm after the storm – and I could sense that; it really impacted me. That call became engraved in my heart.”

Both her recent roles, in her play and in Faraaz, came about during the lockdown. A time that Juhi credits with giving a new lease to her professional life.

She rounds up her life pre-covid in a few words: “My first film didn’t do well at the box office.” Despite that, offers did come her way, but she didn’t find them good enough. “In those days, it wasn’t difficult for girls to find work even if their film had not done well,” she says matter-of-factly. “Back then, films ran majorly on the hero’s name. All the heroine had to do was literally four scenes and three songs.”

She makes her point succinctly, "Unless it was an actress-oriented film, the choice of the heroine didn’t really matter. If a heroine was coming from a 'flop film' directors and producers would regard her as someone who would come with zero attitude, wouldn’t charge much and be 'accommodating' with dates, besides agreeing to stuff that comes when people are desperate to make it so they compromise”.

Juhi continues, “But thankfully, I had the brains to say ‘no’ to such work. I am grateful to my parents (Raj Babbar and Nadira Babbar) who made me realise that kaise kaam kar rahe ho woh jyada zaroori hai; kitna kaam kar rahe ho zaroori nahi hai (the quality of your work is more important than the quantity)."

After her marriage to TV superstar Anup Soni and the birth of her son, Juhi decided to take things easy. She confesses, “A new play requires daily four-hour rehearsals. I didn’t want to do all that. I was finally in a happy state in my head and heart. I wanted to be home with my child and enjoy that stability in my life.”

During this phase, she continued to do theatre, but chose only repeat shows like Begum Jaan and Ji Jaise Aapki Marzi and Salaam 1950s Ke Naam. “I wanted to explore later on, once my son had crossed eight I would decide whether I wanted to do more work,” she says.

In between she continued to dabble with the occasional film role. She says, “I played a tiny role in a Neeraj Pandey film, Aiyaari where I played Manoj Bajpayee’s wife. But the film didn’t do well either. Then people don’t really notice you or recall that you acted in such a film,” she added.

During that time, Juhi also worked with children, holding workshops and as she put it, “thoroughly enjoyed myself.” She also headed the Khala Ghoda Arts Festival’s theatre section for seven years.

Then came the lockdown, a period she describes as “someone up there was helping me along and blessing me”. A colleague insisted that she develop something during this time and Saiyaara happened. A Mumbai theatre person contacted her and she performed Saiyaara online. “The play, till date remains their most highly viewed theatre performance on their guide page,” she says.

The play was later performed with covid restrictions still in place – with less people on stage and in the audience. She also reworked the concepts, expanding it from the original 45-minute online performance to 90 minutes to comply with requirements for performing at Prithvi Theatre. “The immensely emotional but draining monologue became wildly successful -- and other roles began to follow,” Juhi reveals. This included getting signed on for Faraaz and a path-breaking web series in which she will play a very different character.

It's a show by Endemol Productions with Gurudev Bhalla. “All of a sudden, I began to feel that someone up there is noticing and blessing me; people are trusting me with important roles,” she comments. Another big film came her way, the launch of one of the fraternity kids in which she has a small, but good role.

Juhi was also acting in Dostana 2, the film that got shelved after almost 60 percent of it was shot when Karan Johar and Kartik Aaryan parted ways.

Just before the lockdown, she was persuaded to join social media by the PR people connected to Dostana 2. She joined Instagram and got into the entire social media game of chatting, videos and more. Since everyone was home, she suddenly started getting noticed. Mukesh Chhabra also got in touch with her and introduced her to Hansal Mehta, who immediately cast her in Faraaz.

Juhi is all praise for Hansal Mehta as she says, “I was amazed at his confidence and clarity of vision that I would fit in with his character. He is an amazing film maker known both for his vision and storytelling.” Once again, she thanked her fortune for being kind and getting her this role. “All the credit for the great reviews goes to Hansal sir,” she concludes.