Lara Dutta says it is a challenge to balance out business with acting

• Lara Dutta Bhupathi is struggling to balance out her active acting career with entrepreneurial journey and family life.
• The actor from Hiccups and Hookups gives credit to her family for helping her get through everything.
• She now faces brand-new obstacles as a result of the conflict.

Right now, actor Lara Dutta Bhupathi is struggling to balance out her active acting career with entrepreneurial journey and family life. But she is not fretting about it.

“Ever since I stepped into the industry, I never felt that being a film actor is going to be the end all for me in my life. At some point of time, I always knew that I would be an entrepreneur, and that I would venture into business. I have always known that. For me, it was just a matter of finding the right time to be able to commit to this,” Lara tells us.

The actor has recently been very busy with back-to-back shooting schedules for both her web shows and her film projects. She is also working to expand her role as an entrepreneur of a multi-product business brand and to explore new opportunities as a producer. And she now faces brand-new obstacles as a result of the conflict. The 44-year-old reveals, “Five years ago, I thought that ‘okay, now, with the way the film industry functions, I would now have the time now and would be able to go into it. But little did I know that the OTT advent was happening simultaneously, and that I was going to be busier than I have given the last decade”.

“Now, it has become a tremendous sort of challenge for me to balance out entrepreneurship, to balance out a very active acting career while balancing out my family life,” adds the mother of one.

The actor from Hiccups and Hookups gives credit to her family for helping her get through everything. “I’m lucky enough where I have the support of my husband (Mahesh Bhupathi) and my family. My daughter (Saira), who is 10, understands very clearly that her mom really loves what she does, and how important it is for me to constantly create, keep growing,” she says, adding, “I am not just teaching her that it is important for a woman to be financially independent, but also that there is nothing wrong with enjoying to make your money”.

According to the actor, women are frequently taught—a notion with which she disagrees—that all income should be directed toward the family home. “They are taught that you shouldn’t be enjoying the fruits of your labour. That if you are an earning member, then that money should be going into the house. And women are so happy and proud about the fact. I’m talking about the vast majority of women in this country, not the few privileged ones… They actually have very little say about that money, which needs to change,” she says while wrapping up.