Lights, camera, grit: An actor’s battle with cancer

Even though breast cancer took a toll on this actor's life in 2021, it couldn’t keep her away from camera.

Transcript

00:00No hair. No worries. The entire career depends on my physical appearance, my look, my body,

00:23my energy levels, my skin, my hair. For somebody like that, it's very scary. And I decided

00:31that no, I'm just going to put myself out there.

00:53I saved my head because I had really long hair. I saved it and I made a wig out of my own hair

01:05because I wanted it to look just like me. I could just not let go of my hair at that time.

01:11And when I was diagnosed, I had no role model to look up to. And that's when I thought that,

01:26you know, it's important for me to kind of share my journey, to share this dark

01:36phase that I've been through and come out with it.

01:47I didn't know I could, you know, get that kind of love and courage from my followers. I had

01:57some actors call me and get in touch with me. And they wanted to actually, you know,

02:06even some of them told me that they have been through this, you know, they've been through similar.

02:16They also said one thing that Amrita, we are really, it wasn't possible for us to,

02:22you know, come out with it because it does take, you know, your career does take a toll when,

02:29you know, people hear the key word, the way people look at you, the perspective entirely changes.

02:52So I didn't think I'd be, I would be able to, you know, even forget shooting an ad. I didn't,

03:09I didn't realize that I was going to be okay shooting like a photo shoot or,

03:14you know, just coming in front of the camera.

03:15Trust me, I enjoyed every bit of it because that's, that's just who I am. And, you know,

03:25you, you put a camera in front of me and I'm like, like a chill person. Probably the best

03:30day of my, my entire treatment was that day when I shot that ad. I used to go out bald.

03:41I used to, I didn't care. I was like, I'm not going to use some, you know, baal hai, aa jayenge.

03:52I went back on the set with a wig and I'm so grateful to just be back on the set. It was,

03:59it was a very emotional feeling to, you know, face the camera after all of this because

04:07I didn't, I had actually, I didn't know if I was going to be able to do that.

04:21There is life at the end of the tunnel. Okay. And just don't look at the end goal.

04:27Don't look at that, you know, I have to be back to who I am. I think just take one day at a time.

04:37Yeah.