Divya Dutta: After a National Award and Cannes debut, 2018 has been the year when my dreams as an actor have come true

The National Film Award is the highest award for actors and filmmakers in India. So naturally, being awarded one is career-defining for most in the film industry. The term ‘National Award-winner’ almost becomes a prefix for the winners. This year’s Best Supporting Actress Award winner Divya Dutta also discovered this, barely a day after the awards were announced. The actress, who was shooting for her upcoming film 'Abhi Toh Party Shuru Hui Hai' when she learnt of the award, recounted, “As soon as I landed on the sets the following day, everybody just said ‘Here comes the National Award winner’. They really rubbed it in. They would joke around when I had a shot, saying ‘Zara dhyan rakhna, the National Award-winner is in the frame’. Anubhav Sinha (the film’s director) made sure that I absorbed it.”