Actor-singer Sophie Choudry was just two days old when her grandmother had a dream. “One day, she would be on album covers,” she predicted. Years later, the UK-born artiste said that she feels grateful to have come a long way, geographically as well as emotionally, in an industry that didn’t quite know what to do with her as a British-Asian working in Bollywood.
“To get myself out of the glam doll box was virtually impossible. I was told things like, ‘Don’t think na. You don’t have a brain’,” Choudry recalled her early days in the film industry after she moved to Mumbai in 2003.
Over the years, she dropped several chartbuster songs, from ‘Ek Pardesi Mera Dil Le Gaya’, ‘Mera Babu Chhail Chabila’, ‘Zuby Zuby’ and ventured into films, with appearances in David Dhawan’s ‘Shaadi No. 1’, ‘Pyaar Ke Side Effects’, ‘Once Upon a Time in Mumbai Dobaara’ and others.
As she launched her latest single ‘Lips’, sung by her and also featuring Freddy Daruwala, Sophie Choudry sat down with a leading media house to trace her career, opened up about her setbacks and revealed if having friends in the industry, such as Karan Johar, Varun Dawan and Manish Malhotra helped as a sounding board.
“People have always had this perception that, ‘Sophie ki toh puri industry ke saath dosti hai. Woh sabklo jaanti hai’. They must be thinking that everyone is out there helping me. But no one has ever helped, ever. I want to make it clear that you don’t get that much in the industry just through friendships. It is a business. People will work with you if they want to,” she said.
Sophie added, “I am aware that I don’t want to cross over that line as these are my friends. Yes, if I want advice, I will always go to them. Varun was the most active. During my last song ‘Gori Hai’, he was the first person I showed it to because I wanted him to launch it and he started asking what my media plan is and if I have shown this to Karan. So, with ‘Lips’ I didn’t want to trouble too many people, but they have always been encouraging.”