I’m fortunate to be here during the advent of the OTT space:Lara Dutta

Lara Dutta Bhupati is an actress, entrepreneur and the winner of the Miss Universe 2000 pageant. She was previously crowned as Miss Intercontinental 1997. With ‘Andaaz’ (2003), Dutta made her acting debut and was honoured with the Filmfare Award for Best Female Debut. She later appeared in several financially lucrative movies, including ‘Masti’, ‘No Entry’, ‘Bhagam Bhag’, ‘Jhoom Barabar Jhoom’, ‘Partner’, ‘Housefull’, ‘Chalo Dilli’, ‘Don 2’ and ‘Singh Is Bliing’. She won several hearts when she took up the role of Indira Gandhi in ‘Bell Bottom’, she dared to do what very few actors dare to.

In an exclusive conversation with Adgully, actor Lara Dutta Bhupati speaks at length about her journey in the entertainment industry, her life mantra on how she manages and aces in every role she plays as a woman in her day to day life and much more.

About her journey in the entertainment industry, Dutta said, “My journey in the entertainment space has been one of the most fulfilling journeys in my life. I think I’m also really blessed that I am an actor, I would say specifically a female actor in her forties that’s still relevant, doing possibly some of the best work that she’s ever done in her life. I’m having more fun today, playing the kind of characters that I’m now portraying on screen than I ever did before, even when I was at the peak of my career. Today, I’m having far more fun playing the kind of characters because they’re the better written characters and they’re far more relatable characters. The female characters have more meat on their bones. The content is so much better and I’m very fortunate to be here during the advent of the OTT space within India, and have the opportunity to get this kind of work coming my way.”

Speaking about her entrepreneurial journey, Dutta shared, “About five years ago I started with Arias Skincare and Arias Fragrances, and the reason that I ventured into skincare is because I have been in the beauty business for almost 25 years. I started my journey as a model when I was only 16 years old and over the years spending 25 years here I found that there was a serious dearth in the Indian market for a skincare range that was not Ayurvedic based, or that is not naturally based, but could really address the needs of Indian skincare, and the way Indian skin ages.”

Adding further, she said, “We have every single multinational or foreign brand in this country available to us, but all of those skincare brands have been either manufactured in Japan, Korea, France or America and they were made also for those kinds of skin types, which we are using on our faces. But Indian skin ages in a very different way than Caucasian or Far Eastern Asian skin ages, and our factors that contribute to the ageing of our skin are also very different, because our climatic conditions are so specific to this Indian eco-geopolitical positioning that it was very difficult to find something that addressed the need of Indian skins from across the spectrum from end to end, and hence, was formed the idea to create this brand that was affordable, super effective, and you could see a difference in your skin when you started using it.”

She further said, “Arias skincare was born from there. Two years later, we did Arias Fragrances that has worked really well for us. Earlier this year, we launched a rise home, and since our Arias is my daughter Saira’s name as being spelt backwards, I think it was only a match of time when I made that transition into kids’ wear as well. So, we just launched Arias kids in August, which is an eco-conscious fashion brand along with First Cry, which is India’s largest e-commerce platform for anything related to kids and the branch is growing.”

Watch the entire conversation here