Spirited, friendly and ambitious are just about a few words you can use to describe the ever-so-popular Nusrat Imrose Tisha. However, once you get into an in-depth conversation with the sought-after actor, you’d come to realise that you can’t precisely confine this larger than life persona to only a few adjectives.
For the last fifteen years, she has been known for playing out versatile roles for television and the silver screen, thus evoking a myriad of emotions in us. Be it animated characters that have us joyfully laughing to those that have tugged at our heartstrings, Tisha has braved them all. To her, there’s no specific role that served a turning point, as she believes that every one of them helped her grow as an actor.
“I had to prove myself while transitioning from a model to an actor; so I took up light roles in the beginning to strengthen my level of confidence. However, when I realised that I could absorb the acting process, I began experimenting and taking on challenging roles. It’s challenging for me to pick out particular roles to understand which ones served as a turning point in my career. Whether it was comedic or a serious role, I have loved all of them; so I can say that they have all helped me mature as an actor,” she explains.
Speaking of challenges in her trade, Tisha reckons that comedic roles are much more difficult than the serious ones. “In my opinion, the timing and the right delivery of the dialogue is crucial when it comes to portraying a character. The lines and character in a serious situation are difficult in their ways, but the timing isn’t that big of a factor,” she highlights. Additionally, the more time she takes in between her lines, it gives her character more depth and builds up suspense for the audience.
It’s no surprise that Tisha has paved her way into a thriving career; however, she quotes that she’s received immense support, mentoring and friendship from her husband Mostafa Sarwar Farooqi in every step of the way.
“Before our marriage, we were terrific friends and had even worked together. Our relationship was about how we both respected our work seeing that we’re both working in the same industry. It has made our bonding and our relationship with each other stronger,” she shares. She also says that when you respect someone’s work and lifestyle, you will automatically respect the person for who they are. Whenever Tisha needs any advice or help, she can always turn to him, and he too shares the same sentiment for her. “This has helped us both in our personal lives as well as our professional lives,” she emphasises.
Tisha has not only garnered fame in local productions; our neighbouring country too has witnessed her versatility. Having been cast next to Irrfan Khan in the critically acclaimed Bangladesh-India co-production Doob: No Bed of Roses, she claims to have taken away a fruitful experience.
“Being able to work with Irrfan Khan was a big achievement for me. Working with him felt the way I always feel when I’m working with my senior colleagues from Bangladesh. It’s because of his ability to make me feel comfortable and make me feel right at home,” she recalls. Tisha feels that actors everywhere should have an instinctive sense of humility and consideration towards their co-artistes. “When I help and support my co-artiste, I will be helping them and myself in the process. This is one of the biggest things I’ve learned while working with him and it has helped me grow a lot since then. He was very nice, natural and friendly with us,” she expresses.
By the end of our conversation, we raised the topic about her latest hostage drama Saturday Afternoon, a Bangladesh-India-Germany co-production, based on cues from the Holey Artisan Tragedy; it was learnt that there were quite a few speed bumps along the way. However, Tisha, along with her production team, managed to pull it off immaculately.
“Although the film is loosely based on the Holey Artisan Tragedy, much of its content was made up by us as we don’t know the exact details of what happened there. From the actors to the cameraman, everybody had to ensure that we get it done in one single shot, so as not to postpone it to another day. So we all had to be in sync,” says a very content Tisha.
When asked about if she has any regret about playing certain characters, Tisha states that she believes in moving on in life. “As of yet, I don’t have any regret for playing a character nor do I long for characters that I must play someday,” she adds. In case of personal choices, she is very optimistic about life and believes that not being in the social media has helped her in this regard. “Of course it’s a great way of remaining connected with friends and fans, but for me, it might cause an overload of expectations, and hence, I am happy staying out of it,” she explains. “I truly believe that happiness is a choice, even though there is no shortcut to it. One has to work it out constantly,” a peaceful grin shines as the phenomenal actress concludes.