Neha Dhupia’s multihyphenate hat brimmeth over. The actress and producer is all set to make her international acting debut even as she has jumped headlong into Season 6 of her celebrity podcast show, No Filter Neha. A t2 chat.

Six seasons of No Filter Neha is quite a feat!

Thank you! We are in Week 3 of our new season. We have a brand new episode dropping every Thursday. It is very exciting because we have a video format. We are on JioTV. Being a producer takes up a lot of my time.

There is the need to repeatedly prove yourself and I am not talking only about this show. The business is so tricky, you have so many new people and such great talent. I am like: ‘How do I reinvent myself?’ There is a part of me that feels: ‘Wow, I lasted 22 years!’ And then there is another that says: ‘But you still have to constantly prove yourself.’

That is exhausting. You start questioning things around you, but at the end of the day, when I see my kids, I feel things are fine. But that happens in other professions also, it is not just me.

The good thing is that there are now more avenues and opportunities to reinvent oneself...

Of course. But everything boils down to me constantly going back to being an actor. I could start another IP, I could own a little equity in another business, I could be a co-producer on a talk show, but everything else has more brand value the minute I am a legit, bonafide film star. So that need to constantly do acting jobs is always there.

It is always a battle where you have to do this, you have to go out there, you have to reinvent yourself, you have to push yourself and you also have to preserve yourself. You want to be seen, but at the same time, you don’t want to be seen too much because if you are over-exposed, then that is also a problem.

I want to be ahead in the avenues that I am good at. The one role that dominates over all the others I play is that of a mother. I see my two children (Mehr and Guriq) and I am like: ‘I am going to make the right decisions. I am only going to spend that much time away from home doing what I need to, want to and have to do to stay relevant.’ The jobs that are offered to me need to be worth my while to leave these two amazing kids and to go out of the house.

Earlier in my profession, I was constantly hustling because I didn’t know any better. When I had some free time, I was with my parents and friends or working out and I didn’t do a third or fourth thing. Now I have my children and I realise that there is a world out there that I can explore with them. If I am offered a job that doesn’t inspire me 100 per cent, I won’t do it.

Besides No Filter Neha, there is your international film debut, a couple of web shows, and a film with Karan Johar.... So you are pretty much in the game....

Yes, I am in the game, but after 22 years, I am not the hare... I am the tortoise.

Podcasts with celebrities are a dime a dozen now, but you were one of the first. What made you want to do No Filter Neha in the first place and how have you seen it evolve?

The medium has evolved and it is fantastic to hear these conversations. I don’t take pride in saying that I did it before everyone else, but there is a certain first-mover advantage. It was a bit of a risk at that time but the moment we dropped the first episode, we found so many people listening to it.

We did five seasons on audio and then decided to do video because it was time to move on. We have also established a brand of our own with No Filter Neha and it was time to evolve.

Your advantage lies in the fact that you are from the fraternity and your Bollywood guests feel a certain comfort in opening up to you...

That is right. I am friendly to the point where I want to protect my guests. I don’t want them to feel that if they have taken time out to come and speak to me, I am going to throw them under the bus. I want to make sure that I am 100 per cent there to protect the conversation so that they feel that this is the person we are comfortable sharing this piece of information with. Comfort helps the conversation and friendship is a big plus. They know that I won’t do anything that would trouble them.

How do you look back at the 20-plus years in the business?

Every time I speak to people, it is amazing that they remember so much of my career, starting right from winning Miss India. Back then, it was a different world. Everybody was paying attention because there was only one thing happening at a time. There was only one film releasing on a Friday and one big show coming out at a time, as opposed to now where something that happens at 11am is forgotten by 11.45am when a new film trailer comes out. And then there is the world of Reels where you are swiping at the rate of 20 Reels or so a minute.

Is a certain type of role offered to you now more than anything else?

I am not in that situation where I am picking and choosing roles. I will be honest and say that there are only a few things that come to me. The last two offers were not age-appropriate. I was like: ‘Why should I age myself when I am not that old?’ I have no problem playing a mom because I am one anyway, but I don’t need to be seen on screen as a mom of such old kids.

My husband (Angad Bedi) always tells me that I am the one who defines my value. It comes from his understanding of cinema and also maybe it is his immense love for me. He tells me: ‘You are worth much more.’ You need that one person in your life to tell you that constantly... that you don’t have to work every day, you don’t have to go out there and choose everything that comes your way, you don’t have to constantly say ‘yes’ because there is a huge dissatisfaction in doing things that people expect you to do and there is a huge satisfaction in doing things that you think define your worth. That is something that I have learnt.

As I said earlier, I don’t have a problem playing the role of a mom but just because a maker wants an 18- or 20-year-old kid to have a younger mom, I won’t do it. Someone will come and say: ‘Okay you play the mom and then there is the role of an investigator, played by a male actor.’ And I am like: ‘Why can’t I play the man’s part?’ Why can’t the private investigator be a woman?!’ We are writing better and cooler parts for women. But do we have the potential to do much more? Of course yes! We have come a very long way but we are only halfway there.

I am saying ‘no’ to work at a time when I have the least amount of offers. But even if something small feels right, I will do it. Like this web series called Therapy Sherapy (with Gulshan Devaiah) that I am doing and which talks about mental health.

You are perhaps one of the very few who is honest enough to say that work is less...

Even actors and stars who are 10 times bigger than me are not saying: ‘I am turning down scripts every day.’ No one is saying: ‘Everything that is coming my way is exactly what I wanted.’ None of that is happening and you can quote me as many times as you want.

Films need to do well for us to continue to make great cinema. We need to make good cinema for films to do well. It is a vicious circle. For us to do more work, the audience has to go out more and watch our work.

What is it about your international debut Blue52 that caught your attention?

I can’t reveal too many details. I shot it mostly in Kerala and I play one of the leads. One of the other leads is a young enterprising boy and there is also Adil Hussain who is lovely to work with. It is directed by this wonderful filmmaker called Ali El Arabi and I am hoping that more and more people have the same vision as him.

You have shielded your children from paparazzi cameras so far. How do you walk the tightrope of being seen in public with them and yet keep them away from prying cameras?

I know how liberating it was to grow up without cameras in our faces and I want that for my children as well. I want my children to go to open spaces and parks freely. I respect everybody whose children get clicked. Maybe they don’t enjoy it either but they don’t have a choice and they just succumb to it because that is one less battle to fight. I love the paparazzi in Mumbai... if you tell them not to click, they respect that.