Lara Dutta’s Journey From Acting And Film Production To Entrepreneurship

Having won the Miss Universe pageant in 2000, Lara Dutta ventured into Bollywood and was soon acting in many Hindi films. Just a few years later, she launched her own production company but people in Bollywood used to avoid discussing the business aspects of film production with her.

Dutta started the production house in 2011, and she was not even the first female producer in the industry – Fatma Begum to Hema Malini to Twinkle Khanna and many more had jumped into the business decades before Dutta did. That did not make things any smoother. Around two decades later, not only have the equations changed, now she also runs a company that deals in wellness products, home-décor and beauty-care. Started in 2019, the company – Arias (her daughter’s name spelt backwards) – is also set to venture in the business of kids’ wear in a few months.

Begum, also credited as first Indian female film director, ran her production house in the 1920s and Malini started out in the 90s. Dia Mirza started her production house the same year as Dutta, and other top Indian actresses such as Anushka Sharma, Shilpa Shetty and Deepika Padukone launched their production houses a few years later.

Talking about the way she was overlooked as a producer in the business matters, Dutta says, “When I started my production house in 2011, people would only discuss creative inputs with me. But, they would always be looking over my shoulder, searching for a man to discuss the business aspects of it all. That has changed, with time. With OTT, I think the majority of production have women in top positions. Many of us started producing content, creating content that talks about women, to women.”

She adds that the business world was quite different and did not treat her any different from a businessman. “While I did experience that a lot in the film industry, I have not seen it in the business field. I have never been treated differently because of my gender.”

Dutta plans on expanding Arias over the next decade. Just three years after venturing into the skincare business, she recently launched Arais Homes with the @homestores by the NilKamal Group. “Now, we will soon launch Arias Kids, with First Cry in the summer of 2022.”

The actor-businesswoman says she wants to take the company to an annual turnover of at least $40 million within next five years. “As much as I am known as Lara the actor, I also want to be known as Lara the entrepreneur. I am very clear that the audience I am targeting is the women between the ages of 30 and 55, and therefore the mother, the homemaker, the modern Indian woman who has aspirations of her own,” she says.

Even when she started out as an actor in Hindi films, Dutta was very clear about her choices. Having refused a role in a Matrix franchise film due to personal reasons, she always knew what were priorities. Within two years of her entry in films, she had said in an interview that she aimed at being an actor, not a star. That was a rare statement for a beauty pageant winner making her way into films in that era.

“I think I have always been very clear about what my priorities are in my life. That is because of my upbringing. I have said this time and again that I never came here to be a star, I wanted to be an actor. That is how I wanted people to recognize me. And now, I want them to know me as Lara the entrepreneur. And now, after 18 years in the business, I am donning many other hats apart from being an actor – now I am a producer and also a businesswoman. I want people to know me now as Lara the entrepreneur as well,” she signs off.

After making an impact with her performance as former Indian prime minister Indira Gandhi in Akshay Kumar-starrer BellBottom, Dutta was seen in the web series Kaun Banegi Shikharwati and Hiccups and Hookups.