Ramdas Shenoyy in conversation with Lavleen Raizada—National Chair Umpire at Tennis Officials India, Actor featured in various daily soaps like #Yeh Hai Mohabattein, #P.O.W Prisoners of War, #Kahani Hamari… Dil Dosti Deewanepan Ki # Tashan e ishq
The journey of a small-town girl from Tennis umpiring to Daily soap actor
Lavleen Raizada started officiating in Tennis umpiring since 2013 when she thought playing professional tennis was not her cup of tea. We blame the younger generation being irresponsible, but Lavleen proves them wrong. She decided to stop wasting her parents hard-earned money while she was playing tennis and tried her hands in umpiring. This generation is definitely very clear about what they want from life. While she was umpiring, she was trying to find a way out to follow her passion for acting and modeling – her childhood dreams.
After giving 2 -3 years in Tennis umpiring, and becoming financially stable to support her acting dreams, she completed her graduation and eventually decided to come to the Maximum city – Mumbai in 2015, without leaving her officiating career.
She was ready to put in the hard work and hone her acting skills. decided to do a full-time diploma course in acting from Anupam Kher’s school of acting. Her first break was after 2 months in Colors Channel’s daily soap — Swaragini. She did not look back from there, balancing both acting and her tennis umpiring.
What are similarities between Tennis and acting…what are the life learnings from these professions
Lavleen is a hard-working girl and that’s her mantra- “Every day you have to work hard on your acting skills or tennis strokes and when you go for a shoot or play a match, you need to give your best shot or hit the best shot to be called a good actor or to win a match”, very plain and simple.
The challenges that you had to overcome as an actor
As per Lavleen, diction, fear of the audience, playing the characters that look believable, concentration and, to be realistic in acting is what is important to be successful in this art.
More of an actor or tennis professional
She has a balanced view of life. She values both her professions—acting because it is her passion and tennis because tennis has supported her in her livelihood, whereas acting has just started to give her the returns for her efforts.
Advice to aspiring actors
Work hard and never quit
Her role model
It is said that children imbibe a lot of values from their parents. It is true for Lavleen too. For Lavleen, her parents, who support her at every stage of her life are her role models. “It’s tough to become like them. It’s not easy to handle three daughters (a professor, a scientist and an actor” is what Lavleen said. “They have given all three of us more than our expectations. We three sisters cannot imagine ourselves without them. They have sacrificed their luxuries for us. I wish I can become so selfless like them one day” she concluded.