Kathmandu: Twenty-one-year-old Rakshya Thapa is an up-and-coming actress. She has acted for both theatre and the screen. She is also pursuing a bachelor’s degree, majoring in Sociology and Journalism. Thapa enjoys traveling, watching movies and series, listening to music, and dancing.
She has appeared in several plays such as Jhimke Mama, Kanan Harlata, Kina, YELLOVE, and a few others. Likewise, she also has done some short movies, ads, and music videos. Recently, she was featured in a music video, Sunbuki Phool, directed by Rajesh Puma Rai and sung by Marmik Lama.
Thapa talks to Nepal Live today about her perception of theatre acting and acting for screen, why Nepali film industry needs more films like Bulbul, and her affinity to the American sitcom Friends, among other things.
What do you prefer more between movies and plays?
I really can’t just choose one. Theatre has helped me discover myself and refined how I express things. So theatre is really special for me. I get to go with the flow while doing a play. There’s only one take. Whereas for cameras, it all gets technical. There are lots of cuts. Which can sometimes get tiring. After working on some plays and some videos, I now feel that I am more comfortable in subtle acting than loud acting that the theatre demands. This is why film acting feels a bit easier for me.
What is the one thing you want to change about Nepal’s film scene?
There’s not just one thing that I want to change. But if I have to just tell one, for now, I would say I want to change the fact that face matters here. I want producers to hire actors not based on how they look, how tall they are, how much they weigh, etc, but based on how well they work. Music videos must be based on some stories rather than be made just for entertainment purposes, because at the end of the day, it’s storytelling that is important. Also, I want more female-driven stories to be told. As things stand now in our entertainment industry, it feels like females have no stories to tell. They almost always have to play the supporting role. There are only so few films that have female leads. We need more movies like Bulbul.
What is the most interesting thing you’ve read or seen this week?
I read somewhere that a person named Bruce Gernon who was heading for the Florida coast in 1970 was the man who survived the Bermuda Triangle. This was quite interesting—scary and mysterious.
He was a pilot and was flying from the Bahamas to Florida coast which usually takes one and half hours but that day it took only 45 minutes. According to him, as the aircraft reached 11,000 feet, he saw a massive dark cloud. The captain had no choice but to move through the cloud. When Bruce entered inside the cloud, the surrounding was pitch black; no single ray of sun was passing through the cloud. The weather was pretty normal that day, and there was no rain or thunderstorm. Bruce was confused about why he was witnessing black clouds one after the other. He kept on flying and flying but the cloud never seemed to end. He thought that he was going to die.
To his surprise, he saw a small light that marked the exit of the cloud. The exit hole was getting shorter. But Bruce managed to get out of the dark cloud eventually.
As he came out of the tunnel, the flight felt completely weightless for five seconds. As soon as the flight reached its normal state he immediately contacted the ground controls. Bruce wanted to know his location. The ground team was unable to fetch him the location. Bruce realized that he had already reached Miami, Florida.
He says he didn’t believe in time travel or teleportation until it happened to him. And he has also written a book called Beyond the Bermuda Triangle, which I can’t wait to read.
On a lighter note, how would someone get your special attention?
For now, I would say that if they start the conversation with anything related to F.R.I.E.N.D.S or politics or just something philosophical. Maybe also if they have a pretty attractive personality.
Your definition of love?
I read somewhere that the perfect definition of love is “to give someone the complete authority to destroy you but at the same time believing that the other person will never do it”, and I agree with it.
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