Kim Sharma’s latest project has brought her back into the entertainment business, but this time, she is on the other side of the camera. She has made her debut as a producer with Hoemonal, Sumukhi Suresh’s comedy special on Netflix, and has also been closely involved in shaping the show creatively. It is a new role for someone who first entered the industry as an actor with Mohabbatein, went on to work in talent management and helped build the digital creators business at Dharma Cornerstone Agency (DCAA).
Kim first met Sumukhi and was struck by her ability as a performer. Reading the material convinced her that it had the potential to reach people beyond the comedian’s existing audience. “I had no concept of stand-up comedy as a business or a vertical, but when I read the piece for the first time, I knew immediately that it was relatable. It didn’t limit itself to gender, age or strata. Through humour, it addressed important issues without making you feel heavy.”
Hoemonal deals with dating, hormones, singlehood, body image and the expectations women face, Kim is reluctant to put it in the category of female-centric comedy. “I don’t think societal pressure or being alone or not feeling completely supported by the body you live in are female issues. These are experiences across the board. My issue is that when a man says something, everyone says, ‘Yeah, me too’, but when a woman says it, we always speak of it as a woman’s voice. I don’t know why that gets reiterated so much. It’s a woman speaking about things that almost everybody can relate to.”
She also points out that the special does not follow the usual format of a stand-up set. It is drawn from Sumukhi’s personal experiences and moves into an emotional space towards the end. “It’s a very personally lived piece, and at the end there’s a moment of relief for her. You cheer her on. It also gets emotional towards the end, which is not usually the norm when you go to a stand-up set. Because it’s a different piece, there were a lot of hurdles, roadblocks and obstacles. But that’s also the fun of it. We found the most amazing partners at Netflix, an amazing group of women. At the end of this journey, I don’t remember any of the bad parts.”
Having worked on building public profiles, Kim is also clear about where she believes brand building should begin. She does not see an artist’s image and talent as competing priorities. “I don’t think you can build your brand without talent existing in the first place. Brand building is important today because talent is more 360 than it’s ever been. There are so many outposts and ancillary verticals that you have to grow around it, but the fulcrum is always the artist, the talent, the skill they bring and their USP. Around that, you build pillars and a structure, give it familiarity, and that becomes the brand.”
Asked who she thinks has built a particularly strong brand, Kim offers two very different examples. “Recently, I watched a Manoj Bajpayee film. Is there a brand-building exercise around that artist? No. But is he a brand today? Absolutely. If you see a trailer of his film, you know it’s going to come with a certain quality. There’s a brand recall there.” She then brings up Orry, whose public identity has been built around a very different kind of visibility. “That’s a complete brand, and it’s been built in a very different way for a very different function.” She believes digital platforms and the expansion of distribution have given artists more room to develop their own niches, whether they want to appeal to a mainstream audience or a more specific community.
Now that she has debuted as a producer, she is taking things as they come. And women-led stories remain something she would particularly like to back. She is also keen to work with new writers. “I find writers amazing talent. That’s the genesis of everything because if somebody didn’t write something, we’d have nothing to read or tell a story with. Writers are extremely potent in terms of the value they bring to the table. I definitely love to work with some amazing writers in the future.”
The conversation eventually returns to Mohabbatein, the film with which Kim made her debut. She is grateful that audiences continue to remember it, but does not seem interested in revisiting her early years in detail. “I’m very grateful that people still carry that memory in their hearts. It speaks to the strength and magic of cinema and the impact that the film had. But life has moved in 17 different directions since then. I really don’t want to get into vivid memories because I don’t have any. It was then, and this is now.”
A return to acting, meanwhile, does not appear to be on the cards. Kim says she is occupied with the work she is doing now and does not actively think about going back to films. “You choose your interests and areas of creation according to who you are and how you’ve grown as a person. I think that’s something I’ve outgrown. It isn’t really part of my thought process at this point.”
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