Ulka Gupta says, ‘it was difficult’ for her to get cast in a show because she did not look her age: I’ve bloomed very slowly

Actor Ulka Gupta turned 26 on Wednesday and currently her head is full of thoughts about “the new qualities” she wants to work on, “career”, and “definitely the most spoken about topic of marriage”.

So are the plans of marriage clouding her head and she clarifies, “Somebody just suggested and I was like, of course, I’m out of the question because I’m an actress I get a license to (marry at my own pace). So that funny question is out of the topic now.” However, at 26, Gupta feels she is quite “mature”. “A lot of my maturing already happened when I was pretty young. I had a very different childhood. As child actors we were always exposed to every sort of personality on set. That has really added to my personality,” she explains.

Gupta started “auditioning at the age of seven”. She says since her father was an actor his passion passed on to her. “It was contagious to me or maybe it was in my blood. He was a theatre actor and he gave us all the taleem of theatre,” she mentions.As she recalls her initial days in the industry, she tells us how she learnt how to take care of failure. “My first show (Resham Dank) that I ever acted in got over in just three months. It was pretty depressing for me at that age, but I just got over it pretty soon and I learned how to take care of myself. The whole audition process when you are very new to the whole industry, is the toughest, it’s like a lottery system, you can call it like a stock market anything,” the Banni Chow Home Delivery actor recalls.

After her runway hit Jhansi Ki Rani got over, Gupta shifted her focus towards studies. But after her self imposed sabbatical she says things became more difficult. “It was difficult for me to get casted, because I did not look my age. I still don’t look my age. People still get confused. I’ve bloomed very slowly or maybe I just have a baby face for like. But the younger I look, I believe the longer shelf life I can pull off,” she quips. However, the phase of her growing up took a toll at her mental health, so much so that she stopped swimming, kickboxing and other sporting activities. “There was a phase in my life where I felt, ‘Oh my God, child actors of my age were doing so well. Everybody would come to me and be like, ‘You still look like a baby’, ‘You are so skinny’, ‘Why don’t you eat anything?’ And it did play with my psyche at that moment. So much so, I was asked to stop my sports. I was a very athletic girl. I have been through all of that and I picked my battle, the one I had to work on and I didn’t take much to heart,” she ends.