Actress Adah Sharma has clarified that her association with controversy-driven films following the blockbuster The Kerala Story is not a calculated career strategy, telling reporters that she approaches every role — fictional or fact-based — with the same emotional commitment once the camera rolls.

The Pattern That Followed The Kerala Story

Since the success of The Kerala Story, Sharma has repeatedly found herself linked to films rooted in real or contentious subjects — including Bastar: The Naxal Story, Tumko Meri Kasam, and Gajra. The pattern has prompted industry observers to ask whether she is deliberately positioning herself in this space, or whether filmmakers are now seeking her out specifically for such material.

Sharma pushed back on both readings. 'Actually, after The Kerala Story, I did Sunflower, where I play a bar dancer in a completely fictional world. Then I did Reeta Sanyal, where I got to play eight different characters… It's adventurous, quirky, and far removed from reality,' she said.

A Range Wider Than the Headlines Suggest

The actress pointed to a body of work that spans genres well beyond the socio-political. She noted her role in the Commando OTT series — pure action entertainment — where she reprised her character Bhavana Reddy from the franchise started alongside Vidyut Jammwal. Her upcoming slate includes a horror film and a superhero project, both fictional.

'My next film is a horror film, which I hope for all of us, isn't based on a true story, and I hope ghosts aren't going to haunt us like that! I'm also doing a superhero film, which is fictional,' she said, adding that Gajra — in which she played the goddess Devi — came to her after that, and was the project rooted in true events.

Her Philosophy on the Camera

At the core of Sharma's response is a performance philosophy that collapses the distinction between fact and fiction. 'For me, as an actor, true or fictional, everything is real. When I'm in front of the camera, whether I'm playing this human based on my imagination or on someone who existed, it is all the same for me,' she said.

This approach, she suggested, is what makes the diversity of her choices possible — the emotional process does not change with the genre.

Career Context and Recent Work

Sharma made her acting debut in the 2008 Hindi horror film 1920 and went on to appear in Hasee Toh Phasee, Heart Attack, S/O Satyamurthy, and Kshanam. Her mainstream breakthrough came with The Kerala Story, which told the account of Shalini, a former nursing student from Kerala who becomes the wife of a terrorist — tracing her journey from naivety to victimhood.

Her most recent theatrical release, Governor, produced by Vipul Amrutlal Shah under Sunshine Pictures, hit screens on 12 June. As her upcoming projects move from horror to superhero territory, the question of whether she is a 'controversy actress' appears, by her own account, to be a label the roles have earned more than the actress has sought.