A glimpse into the mind and life of Shanoo Sharma, the casting whizkid who discovered Arjun Kapoor and Ranveer Singh

'Do you know Shanoo Sharma?' I was asked by a wannabe actress a few years ago. Nope, never heard of her, I said. 'She is the casting director for Yashraj Films," I was informed. Over the last two years, I've heard her name several times, mentioned mostly by struggling actors in awed tones. I heard horrible things about her. How she never answered her phone. How she was more difficult to get in touch with than Obama. How she was the most powerful woman in YRF and how she could make an unknown person a star overnight. And she has made quite a few careers. In a country of 1.25 billion where every third person wants to become an actor, she is the hope of lakhs of people. I was intrigued. I wanted to meet her. But I didn't want to message someone notorious for never answering calls or texts and wait endlessly, so I called Karan Johar (she appeared on his chat show) and asked him to connect us. The ever-helpful KJo, did his thing and we connected. We decided to meet at her home. Her only request before we began, "Don't ask me to talk about (her discoveries) Arjun (Kapoor) and Ranveer (Singh). I assured her, I was only interested in her story. And so between cups of green tea, we chatted about her work, her life, her fundas. I came away impressed with this 36-year-old cool chica. Mostly because she makes time for herself and knows how to balance her work hard and party hard.

Her average day, she tells me is different. No two days are alike, "It begins at… some days start at 9.30 am, some at 11am. The best thing about my work is, it can happen from anywhere. I don't need to be in an office. I can be in bed and I can be working till 12 am. On days when I have meetings, I start a little earlier, so it's very fluid."

I love that someone who is so busy, has her priorities so clear, "I only go to office at around 2.30 or 3 in the afternoon, because I like to spend a certain amount of time in the morning with my family, with my mum and dad and after that what I do is, I start working with the team at the office. They do all their sourcing, looking for new faces, downloading of all the emails etc, because I see my presentations at night so that it doesn't clog up my day. I go through everything. Every download, new advertisements… I don't necessarily go watch plays, my team does that, but we keep track of new faces everywhere."

She didn't begin as a Casting Director for Yash Raj Films. It was something she stumbled into. In fact her first real big break came from Karan Johar and she almost turned it down. She informs me, "I started with Sudhir Mishra.Yash Raj gave me a job before but I didn't want my wings clipped so I didn't do it. I needed to work with different people. I did four projects with Sudhir. What happened is, I sort of helped Shimit Amin for Chak De! even though he had another casting director, and he convinced Karan (Johar). He told Karan that "Listen whatever she is, she will be able to manage this." So my first big commercial film was Kurbaan for Karan. And he was blown away by my casting and he said, 'I want you to do My Name Is Khan' That was was a huge, massive film. I remember calling Karan and saying, 'I won't be able to do this and I don't have a set up and I don't have the systems and I don't have a place. I am working from my house with a small camera. But Karan just super supported me and he said, 'Nobody is going to be as nervous as I am and we'll get through it together.' That one line gave me strength. Then I did four films for Dharma. I was doing odd projects here and there, and then finally I got Ranveer for Band Baaja Baaraat which is where Yash Raj put the final offer to me."

I ask her to go into flashback and tell me how she got started? And if this is something she has always wanted to do? She grins, "I never wanted to be a casting director. I think I wanted to be just married, have kids and have my husband take care of me, which was like a typical thing back then." But she has held some of the most fun jobs in the meantime, "I bartended and washed cars in South Africa for money. I started waitressing when I was 14 because I wanted to be a grown up when I was a kid. I have no hang-ups. Because once you are a waitress you don't have that thing "Yaar mein inki beti hoon" or 'I am from this family' and being abroad helps." I listen fascinated as she tells me she doesn't have any degree. She never went to college, and was sacked from the first two jobs she had! "I am almost a school dropout. and I don't have my school certificate but I passed. I got educated all over India and then I went to South Africa for a ten years because my family moved there. One day my father asked me, 'You want to work or go to college?' I said I am dying to work and I came to India in 1997. I wanted to earn just Rs 2000- 2500 a month to pay for things like phone bill, silver earrings, or whatever I wanted to buy."

Her first real job was with Manish Malhotra, "I assisted Manish Malhotra in 1997, of course I failed miserably. I used to shave my head. I was bald, well-spoken and Manish said, 'I like this style' and hired me. It was the first time I had been away from my family. I was living alone and wanted to go out partying every night. I'd come home and pretty much pass out at his house. So he fired me. We have a great laugh about it today. I worked with him for about a month. I also worked with Wizcraft. I worked with Rodney Barns as production assistant and he was my most amazing boss ever. Because I spoke well, they wanted me to do events as well. So it was too much. One day their receptionist just walked out and because I happened to be standing near the phone and they offered me that job. So I was like. 'No I don't want to do this' and then I think I got fired from there as well. I would wake up every morning and I would tell my dad 'I think I should be a hairdresser' or 'I think I want to be a singer as it is my calling.' I didn't know what I wanted to do."

After six months of doing odd jobs here, she got pulled back to South Africa, "My father had opened another restaurant which I ran and I brought it up to it's whatever level and I started bartending. After that there was a family issue and we all decided unanimously that it's time to come back home (to Mumbai). Then I worked for Adhuna (Akhtar) at Juice. I trained for a month or two over there. My parents were like, "You are hopping jobs and I was the most irresponsible human being and the black sheep of the family. I used to get lectures from my uncles that, 'You are so bright, and you just don't focus on anything." I just couldn't do it. I was a wreck, I was completely rebellious. I was not at all organized. So I went ahead and I would just kind of be doing things and then I worked and then my father said to me one day, 'You will never do a job for longer than a year.' Then I went to this place called 5 Restaurant in Santa Cruz and I did PR and marketing for one year and then I left and joined Niharika Khan as PR and marketing for a store that she was opening in Bandra. I was doing all sorts of jobs here and there.

I ran a Western Café, I did styling, a little bit of singing here, there whatever I could do and then I broke my leg in an accident, and was bedridden for a while. So my brother said to me 'Why don't you start talent management?' as I knew everybody. Yash Raj would kind of call me and say we need a stylist for Saif's hair for Hum Tum. So I sent Ryan in and he got the job and he became Saif's stylist. We need a costume designer for Aaja Nachle. They knew that I was hanging with the groovy and with cool people. I was asked to cast a girl as Madhuri's daughter. They knew that I would be able to bring people in. So I started talent management and I made a lot of money. But I couldn't do it for long. I can't deal with people's baggage like 'Why is this one getting work, why am I not getting work?' While I was doing talent management I got to meet a lot of directors and then someone said you should cast. I was just random working on The Forest with Ashwin Kumar and he said, 'What do you think of this actor and what do you think of that actor' and and he would say 'You are bang on, you are absolutely right.' So there was a sense. And then my brother was assisting Sudhir Mishra and he asked me if I wanted to cast Khoya Khoya Chaand. By then I was doing UCLA projects, like student films that get made in India. So for three thousand rupees I was casting movies. So I did my first film and it was called Monsoon where I cast Ravi Baswani for a man called Shyam Palse and slowly it started kicking in. By the time Khoya Khoya Chand happened, I was like 'Yeah man, this is a piece of cake' and of course I had no idea what I was getting into."

She never imagined she would get stalked and even get death threats from struggling actors. She has 17 lakh actors in her bank and she cannot find work for everyone. She has to deal with over 8,000 mails daily. And he mailbox is always full with mails bouncing back. She gets hundreds of text messages. How does she deal with it all? She sighs, "I'll be honest with you, when I came here, I would meet 30 to 40 people a day. I would meet everybody who wanted to meet me everyday. By the end of the day I was sapped and I realised that I was becoming like shrink to these people, and counselling them. Now, I have a trained team that meets the people. Their needs are met and their audition is shown to me. When I need someone for a particular project, I will call them in. I also have to train and groom of actors. I have to construct leads. I have to make my new Ranveer Singhs, Parineeti Chopras and Arjun Kapoors. And for that, I need time. I can't be meeting everybody, but anybody who comes into our office is treated with respect. The minute I don't respond, I become a bitch. A couple of years ago, at the beginning of my career there was a man from London and he had an accent. I said, 'Please work on your accent and come back to me when you know how to speak Hindi.' He went around telling people that I came on to him because he refused to sleep with me I didn't help him."

Shanoo knows that in her line of work, there are always going to be people who are disappointed because they can't reach her or meet her personally. "The message that I give actors is that don't get intimidated by me or what you have heard about me. Go through that one experience and form your own opinion. Don't hear what people have to say about someone, because then you might miss out on an opportunity. We are all professionals here. I got famous at one point because I didn't answer phone calls. Not because I was doing my job well. That's how ridiculous it is. I don't answer calls. We work over text messages. I check my messages once a week because I want to respond to each one. Then I sit with my assistant and go through this person's email and then they are called in for an audition." I express surprise that she answers each text. But I learn from an acquaintance who tried to reach her 10 days ago that he got a reply.

"The truth of the matter is that I am still learning myself and still making mistakes and I am getting ahead with life like that. I understand where actors come from. There are times when I meet a person who is waiting at my office for six hours for me. I tell them, instead of sitting with me for six hours, give an introduction and go do other work. Go and train yourself. Go to Prithvi Theatre, watch a play, do something, you can't be sitting in an office just to meet someone for two minutes. I respect actors and would never be rude to them. There have been people who have called me and abused, or sent angry emails. But luckily, I work for a production house that's like a home, and if I have a problem with anyone, I have their full support. If I have a problem they will completely push it to the cyber cell. I get threats on Facebook, mails and on my phone. Initially, it used to freak me out. Now I know none of that has ever culminated into anything so I am okay."

How does casting work? "We have camera introductions and we revisit our log every time we are casting. Always looking for new talent and revisiting the old, so it's a blend of both. I audition all the primary stuff. The first round is done by my assistants. They do the introductions because pictures are very deceptive. Every person who sends a picture gets to be called in and gets a camera introduction." She gives her team full credit for her success, "I am very rude to them, I am very mean to them but they are my absolute core. They are the reason why I am where I am at today. They are my pillars. The amount of protection and love I get from my assistants, I don't get from anybody in the world."

What does she hate about her job?

"I don't like telling an actor that he didn't get the part. And I don't like casting children. I feel kids should not have…let me just say, I like casting children with responsible parents. And what I love about my job is: When my producer and my director are happy. I love the blessings that I get from my actors and their families. Very recently I cast an actor in Mardaani. He has an 87-year-old nani who cooked 15 things without any help, packed them in big big boxes and came from Churchgate to our office and served it to us. To me, that's just wow. So when I get, someone's mother make me Yakhni pulao or a mother send me a little token like a nose pin, or bindis, a dupatta... it's a great feeling. I feel very blessed."

The girl who could not hold on to a job has now been with YRF for five years and she is still going strong, "I don't take a day off, not because I can't, because I have made my life a holiday. Like now, if in the evening I want to go watch the sunset, that's where we are working from. On the beach. I don't read the news or watch the TV. I don't like it. I learn songs for karaoke nights, I like to hang out with friends, do coffees, and talk about things that are not movie related. Be a girl, go shopping, get my manicure, get a head massage or maybe I go to Colaba, walk the Causeway and do random things. Mine is a mobile office and my office is still running whilst we speak. Someone is being auditioned in my office and if they need to show me, they can skype with me right now."

She admits that friends and family are always recommending actors to her but she says that the person who lands the role is the one who deserves it, and for no other reason. "I meet everybody that comes in through a reference, and who has a potential. I don't meet everybody that comes. There's hundreds but everybody gets the same treatment whether it's my cousin, sister-in-law. I don't care. People don't get cast because they are somebody's cousins. I also have to protect my reputation."

It's often whispered in hallowed tones that you are the only person whom Aditya Chopra listens to.

"My job is to cast. If I feel strongly about something, I can put up my point but it better be valid. My producer's film is still running in Maratha Mandir after 25 years. He has build an empire of genius. I don't think he has come this far by listening to people, but I also think he has come this far by listening to people. There are so many times I feel strongly about something and I have the freedom to voice it. He is the most amazing boss. He has the patience to explain to me why I am wrong, and not just say 'you are wrong'. He is my teacher. I am learning everyday under him. My true inner happiness is when I am taught something by him and I am able to deliver it and he has acknowledged. That is fireworks of blessings. Apart from YRF, I only cast for Karan and help friends like Shabina Khan. My friend just made a short film I cast. So anything that doesn't take me away from my work, I'll help but officially I will only cast for a Karan because he gave me the first big break and I will never ever be able to say no to him. But I am not leaving anytime Yash Raj anytime soon. I love working here, I am obsessed with my work and that's what makes me do twenty four hours."

What's ahead? Launch her own casting firm? She shakes her head, "One of South Africa's first Indian restaurants was opened by my dad. And my dream is to open up a restaurant. I want to have a husband, who is a chef or a musician or a photographer. I am hoping he will be temperamental like me. We will call the restaurant something like The Moody Chef. There will be corners for people who want to come and chill by themselves. There will be corners for people who want to mingle and there will be corners for social family gatherings. I want to feed people and take their money, and then they should go."

She is single, but she laughs when I ask her if that's because she is married to her work, "No, no. Please, I hate that line. I am not married to my work. I date people on and off. I am not your conventional cup of tea. I'm trying to do something about it. But I need a ghanti yaar. I need my 'Tu ne mari entryaan, dil mein baji ghantiyaan' to happen. I grew up watching films, so… I know, this is a bit fairy tale. Today I feel like I really don't mind getting married but I can't be bored of the person I get married to. If that happens, I'll be done. For me it's not about the status or how you look. I see good looking people every day, for me the minute someone makes me laugh… that's all I need. Also, he needs to be able to dance. That's it."