OUR CORRESPONDENT
ITANAGAR: The dream of Chum Darang to act in Hindi movies has finally turned into reality, as the 29-year-old actress from Arunachal Pradesh is making her Bollywood debut with Junglee Production's movie 'Badhaai Do'.
The actress, from Pasighat in East Siang district, will be seen sharing screen space with Rajkummar Rao and Bhumi Pednekar.
Born to Tajep Darang and Yamik Dulom Darang of Mirsam village near Pasighat, Chum has also won various beauty pageants like Miss AAPSU 2010. She has also participated in various national and international beauty contests. She was one of the finalists of North East Diva 2014. She also holds the title of Miss Tiara India International 2017.
Not just this, Chum Darang is also the owner of a coffee cafe called 'Cafe Chu' at Pasighat. Rajkummar Rao and Bhumi Pednekar's Badhaai Do is all set to release on Friday.
Badhaai Do is an unconventional story as it shows the journey of a lesbian woman and gay man who marry each other as a cover-up to appease their parents. Darang will be seen playing Bhumi Pednekar's love interest in the film.
Though Darang is thrilled about this opportunity, she says that Bollywood was never the plan.
"I wanted to act, but I thought people would laugh if I told them about this," says Chum. She originally planned to run a café in her hometown, but decided to try her hand at acting.
"We don't have theatres in my hometown so they are planning to go to Assam and will be travelling for three hours to see me on the big screen," she said.
Chum reveals about how Badhaai Do happened and why actors from the North-East are afraid of being typecast in certain roles.
"I have learnt to be hard-working from Bhumi and Rajkummar," she said.
Sharing the screen with actors like Rajkummar Rao and Bhumi Pednekar, who have been appreciated for the kind of roles they play, has been exciting as well as a learning experience for Chum.
"They both are so down-to-earth and work really hard. I know they are experienced, they know so much but during the shoot, they sat down, listened to the director and worked accordingly. I learnt to be hard-working and grounded from them, the respect they have for other actors on set was another thing that I learnt from them," she added.
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