OWNING THE MOMENT – NEHA DHUPIA

In a scenario where celebrity style revolves around aping trends and breaking the Internet, Neha Dhupia’s singular take on style stands apart. The former Miss India, actor, producer, YouTube show host, mother, and homemaker has fashioned her own individual style vocabulary which has consistently evolved over the years. From embracing androgynous silhouettes to experimenting with Indie brands to rooting for supersized shapes, she’s proved herself to be a confident dresser with a mind of her own.

In a candid chat with The Peacock Magazine, the style savant speaks at length about her personal style which has often been a subject for discussion among the style cognoscenti. “I always say that five Nehas exist in my head. Some days I want to be elegant and wear a sari. And there are times when I feel androgynous. So, I want to wear a suit or some days, I want to wear something oversized. And other days, I want to keep it extremely simple. But the bottom line, as far as my style is concerned, it remains ‘less is more’. I feel extremely confident when I wear clothes that I’m comfortable in. And not the other way around. Like my confidence comes from the comfort that I’m feeling on that day,” she shares in all honesty. 

The fashion maven admires style icons like Charlize Theron and Cate Blanchett. Back home, she’s all praise for Sonam Kapoor and Karisma Kapoor.

When asked to share a style faux pas she notices which Indian women often make, she quips, “I think overdoing hair and makeup could be a fashion faux pas. Like if your makeup is intense, go easy on the hair and if your hair is intense, go easy on the makeup. Sometimes I feel that you don’t always need a stylist and a team to show up. Just being yourself can also be very beautiful so a pared-back approach is far more fashionable or stylish than overdoing.” 

In a long chat with The Peacock Magazine, the style-savvy producer and actor spoke about her newest celebrity talk show, Double Date which she’s hosting with husband Angad Bedi on her YouTube channel. She also looked back at her journey as an artist and shared how she juggles her personal and professional life. Over to her… 

When you look back at your journey as an artiste, do you ever look back and critique some of the choices you made?

I don’t analyse my career graph. I look back at things that led me here. And then there are always the high points. Those were the pivots, right? You can’t be on the same graph for like 22 years. 

So, I look back and analyse the parts where, I’ve always taken risks. And I’m not worried about taking risks. And those risks one way or the other have paid off. And I just feel like are you even a creative person if you’re not going to take chances? How are you a creative person if you’re not going to listen to your heart? How are you even creative if you’re not going to keep reinventing? And within the reinvention are my highs and lows. 

So yeah, the analysis is when I’m trying to do something new, like for instance, now I’ve just gotten on YouTube and I’m just thinking what is the risk to reward ratio? And that’s something that one always calculates. And the best part about being in the business is that there are only rewards because the risk people won’t see it. 

And there’s no flip side to your content not being viewed, except that you need to stop doing it and start with something new. And if people appreciate it, the reward is a lot like you get the love back, right? So that’s what you work towards.

Are you a director’s actor or are you your own creative individual?

I’m my own creative individual, but when I’m shooting fiction, I’m a director’s actor. You know we are in so many sets, sometimes on an advertising set or on a digital set, sometimes on a set where you’re creating something of your own, I do have an ability to take over when there is the need. But when I’m shooting fiction, for instance, OTT or movies, I learn my lines, I show up and I let the director take the lead.

Do you plan each career move or do you take each day as it comes?

I tried planning a lot in the past and nothing went as planned until I learned that you really have to take each day as it comes because even when you plan everything, within the realm of your own planning you still have to take each day as it comes. If I plan to do an OTT in that as well I must take each day as it comes. I could be on a reality show like Roadies and plan that I wanted to do a reality show which is why I am doing this but within that also, it has to be a combination of both.

How do you strike a balance between your personal and professional life?

We’re living in a mythical world. When you’re a mom to two toddlers, you think will you ever find the balance? Like as long as by the end of the day you achieve 80% of the things that you set out to achieve – that could be wake up in the morning, go to work out before the home wakes up, hang out with your children, feed them breakfast, send them off to school, they come back, by then you finish your meetings, you feel extremely overwhelmed but you see them, you get your second wind and they leave for another class, then you go ahead and do something else with your life and then by the time it’s bedtime, you’re like, when you’re about to shut your eyes, you hold your children close to you, you have your husband next to you and you’re like, ‘hey, I did something right’.

So that is the circle of my life every day. Where I find my balance is when I’m able to hustle between being a mom, an actor, an entrepreneur, and a homemaker. Sometimes it’s a little more tilted towards say one and four and sometimes it’s two and three but I don’t know where I stand.

Take us through your skin care and hair care regimes.

Oh my god! Hair care, I mean, oiling once a week, shampoo, deep conditioning. I brush my hair two or three times before sleeping and kind of, there’s a particular knot that I tie my hair in, it’s not too tight, not too loose and the ends are all wrapped up, so it doesn’t break and then on most days, I’m co-sleeping with my kids, so I don’t want them to be troubled with my hair. So yeah, so that’s what I do.

Postpartum hair fall is real, so I really had to look into that. My mom has this hair oil home concoction, and she makes it for me. I don’t know what it has, but I can give you the details. It’s a magic potion. As far as my skin care is concerned, I wake up, moisturize. Before I step out of the house, I wash my face with just water or just cleanse it. Moisturize, sunscreen and yeah, excessive moisturization again and right before bedtime is when the big routine happens. 

You know, under eye cream and maybe a serum and maybe an overnight cream.
I know it sounds like a lot, but you know, when you hit your 40s, you really have to kind of believe everything that everyone says about skin care and hair care.

How do you stay fit? Do you follow a rigorous workout routine and dietary supplements?

I work out every day, and I try and target three runs a week, so cardiovascular, three weight training sessions and three hardcore yoga sessions a week. Saturday morning, I do my last session, so all of Sunday no matter what happens I don’t work out and then between Monday and Saturday, there are two days that I do double sessions. Usually during the mornings, I do my yoga, I combine it with a run in the evening but not every day.

So yeah, I try to target eight to nine sessions a week and they’re really intense workout sessions and I really believe that ‘strong is beautiful’. I don’t believe in any sort of supplementation, I take a regular multivitamin tablet, I have an anti-inflammatory formula that I take in the morning which is fully homemade and it’s all over Instagram and that’s something I came up with this lovely dietician called Richa Gangani. 

And I take a Vitamin C on most days, but I don’t believe in any sort of shortcuts, I don’t believe in shocking my body in any way except of course with exercise. When it comes to nutrition, I prefer homemade food as much as I can. I’m not on a strict diet but the things I stay away from are sugar and gluten. 

So, if you see me having anything that looks like a cookie, it has no gluten or sugar. But you know I’ve caught myself eating leftover food from my kids’ plate which could be full of butter or ghee and that is not bad for you. But yeah, as you know I’m married to Angad and we’re both foodies and we love our food. We eat well but we eat right.

What keeps you motivated to push the creative envelope?

I think, as a person, I’m always eager to learn, understand and move with time. I’m constantly driven by the need to stay relevant, not be affected by competition and, most importantly, cut out the noise The only way I can do all of that is by continuing to evolve, staying busy, hustling and understanding what the audience expects out of me. 

There’s also this fear of vanishing as I’ve never done anything else in my life. This is what I’ve done for the past 22 years so I don’t want to be forgotten because I feel I have so much more to give and offer. I want to either create opportunities or I want to go out there and grab them so the eagerness of all that keeps me going.

You’ve successfully balanced multiple roles, actor, host, entrepreneur, and mother. Which role has challenged you the most and what has it taught you about yourself?

I think, at various stages of my life, different things have motivated me. When I was trying to transition from Miss India to becoming an actor, I was still understanding and finding my bearings in the city. Then switching up for becoming an entrepreneur gave new perspective as meeting people from different walks of life bring in diverse kinds of takes. They look at the same thing differently. 

Like suppose I have a fruit start-up called ‘Fruit Raja‘. So, let’s say my business partner could be looking at a mango differently, whereas the investors could be looking at it differently and I could be looking at it just as a fruit. So, it’s someone’s business idea. It is a fruit for me and for someone else, it’s something that’s, you know, that could make money.

What I’ve learned at different stages of life is that every new role changes the way you understand people. Becoming an entrepreneur teaches you to navigate diverse personalities and perspectives. But becoming a mother is an entirely different ballgame. Those who are reading this and are parents will understand how profoundly your world changes.

Until the time you don’t get there, you don’t understand. I don’t even expect people to. But yeah, I mean, I think my outlook towards life changed completely after becoming a mom, because, you know I have the ability to cut out all the noise. Everything else is important.

But nothing is as important to me as my children. So, I mean, there’s no comparison, right? But having said that, there are days when I see my kids more. And then there are days when I’m more focused at work. But that doesn’t mean one is on top of the other. I’m a mother and that’s always going to be my priority.

Looking back, is there a project, moment or achievement in your career that feels particularly defining or transformative?

Winning Miss India. I saw hope after I won the title. Because you come in and you have a place to stay, you have an agency looking after you and you don’t have to go around scouting. At least for the first step, you have a foot in the door. So yeah, winning Miss India, I don’t know what I would be doing. My dad was in the Navy, so for me, career options were just armed forces or serving the nation or civil services.

Having witnessed the entertainment industry evolve over the years, what do you miss most from the earlier era?

I think that things were more mysterious. I feel like there’s too much pressure now. We’re not doing one thing, like there’s social media and there’s like, you know, a digital agency and you have to perform all the time. It’s not just about doing the shot. 

Then there’s another agency waiting for you saying, ‘can you give a byte here’? I come from a time where we didn’t even have monitors. Like there were some photographers who could only see through their lens. And my first ever portfolio I did, there were contact sheets and there were negatives and you had to look up into the light and stuff. I miss the mystery. I miss the silence. You must be present all the time now. 

Now I feel like you see everyone all the time and there’s fatigue. And I also feel like people were more present. Now when you go on a set, everybody’s on their phones and not interested in talking very much. And, you know, you have to get people’s attention because everyone’s consumed. Work deliverables have gone up so much more. And you’re evaluated by the number of likes you get and the followers you have, which is the truth. 

I also see that there is a certain sadness right now, whereas the mystery and the happiness was in the wonder years when we started.

What does success mean to you today and how has your definition of it changed over the years?

I think back in the day it was more about getting a great project or maybe love from the audience, appreciation at work or staying relevant. But today success is watching my children grow and become good human beings, seeing a value system, coming home to our son, our daughter, my husband, making that one call to my parents, understanding that success has got nothing to do with how much money you make, what is your box office.

My mom used to always tell me that it’s about health and happiness but I would never understand. Cut to today, now success for me means health and happiness. Are we happy at the end of the day? Are we healthy? And that’s all that matters to me. So, every day I work towards success, I work towards health and happiness.

What excites you most about fashion and entertainment today?

I love that Indian designer have shown so much growth. What excites me about international designers and fashion is outlet stores. Because I can only afford them there. And thrift stores, because I’ve always shopped there. And sale racks.

The entertainment industry has so much good and interesting work being written. It’s not just about nailing it, meeting people, and collaborating. And even if you don’t have that going for you, just collaborate with the right people. You may think, ‘Why would they want to collaborate with me?’ But everyone is always looking for interesting people. And I mean, look at Obsession, which has done so well right now. What a story that is. I’m simply happy that I’m doing a brand-new show on YouTube called Double Date, and I’m collaborating with my husband. Who would have thought that the two of us would come together and make a show like this? And we’re so proud of it. 

You could have someone coming out of YouTube and creating a success story like Obsession, or something like Dhurandhar becoming such a massive success. All ends of the spectrum are open to you. It’s just the beginning!