Actor Harleen Sethi is currently basking in the success of her Netflix series Shaque. However, it was a meaningful interaction in which she spoke about how her relationship with herself has evolved over the years. In terms of fitting into the mould of a ‘typical heroine’, Harleen Sethi made an astonishing confession about how she never believed she was beautiful until the immense love she received after her breakthrough show Broken But Beautiful with Vikrant Massey.
The audience made her believe in some of the trademark aspects of how a ‘heroine’ should look, while also helping her embrace her own charm.
In an exclusive conversation with News, Harleen Sethi shares, “I was this girl who had acne since the age of 15. And I always struggled to find myself beautiful and then came Broken But Beautiful and Kohrra, all those other shows that I did and the parts that I played and the amount of love that I got for it. Never did anybody make me feel anything less about myself.”
She continues, “And I feel like my love for myself actually grew because the audiences gave me so much love and they were accepting me. And that was so much validation that I was like, they are saying I’m beautiful. Maybe I’m beautiful. And that’s how my journey towards vanity even started or even like taking care of myself.”
She further explains how she never had any idea how to really take care of herself. From what workout suited her to what diet to follow, to even having a beauty regime in place, she was an absolute novice.
“A lot of the time, even when I put stories up and all, I mostly never use filters. That confidence I got from people,” adds the actress.
On Being Conscious Of How She Looked On Screen In Broken But Beautiful
Such is the popularity of Harleen Sethi as Sameera from Broken But Beautiful that, to date, people keep asking for more seasons of the show.
While she looked beautiful to her fans, she did not quite believe it herself.
Harleen Sethi recalls, “I was so stressed that who is going to talk about my skin or how I look, you know. And then I realised with all the love that I got and the amount of love letters that, you know, we received and I read all of them. And it’s always fine. I was like, has anyone mentioned that I am looking bad or my skin’s looking bad here or there? And not even in one comment did anyone say that, and they were all praises. And that made me feel like I’m worthy of being on screen and I am beautiful.”
“So it really took me a long time to sort of accept myself from the outside. You know, that outside-in process happened because of the audiences and the love that they showed towards me, right? I think that gave me a lot of courage to be an actor and to be a ‘heroine’.”
About Harleen Sethi
Indian actress, dancer, and anchor Harleen Sethi started as a dancer before appearing in numerous commercial ad films and eventually foraying into acting.
She made her screen debut in the 2013 short film Country of Bodies: Bombay in Dance.
Her breakout role came as Sameera in the 2018 series Broken But Beautiful opposite Vikrant Massey. Over the years, she has impressed audiences with a variety of roles in projects such as Kohrra, The Gone Game, Doctors, and Be Happy.
She was last seen in Shaque: Trust No One alongside Parineeti Chopra, Jennifer Winget, Soni Razdan, Anup Soni, Tahir Raj Bhasin, Dhruv Chaudhary, and Sumeet Vyas.