Better known as the heroine of lesser known films and now as Akashdeep’s wife, Sheeba is the official producer of Karishma as the head of Cinetek Films. She doubles up as the older Karisma’s daughter in law, a negative character that Sheeba says she enjoyed playing to the hilt.

Sitting pretty in pink alonside her hubby, Sheeba spoke to indiantelevision’s Aparna Joshi andTrupti Ghag last week, before the copyright infringement controversy broke out.

How is it being both the producer and an actor in your own production?
It’s interesting. Your are free to do what you want as the producer and to experiment as an actor. Besides, all the actors in Karishma are like family, we even spent time watching the World Cup together when we were shooting abroad. As an actor in a daily, I am free to improvise on my looks in the next episode if I haven’t been satisfied in the last one.

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How does it feel to be producing a show touted as the ‘biggest television series ever’?
It’s scary. Nothing this big has ever been tried on TV so far.It was a big combination of dates to handle considering the big names we have on the cast, but there are so many positive vibes that it went off quite easily. I and Akash divide the job, I handle the technical bits, he looks after the creative side. He’s too good- at the editing table, he’s able to detect flaws in a jiffy that escape the rest of us even after four viewings.

What do you think made ‘Karishma’ a reality in such a short span?
Akashdeep. He’s very good at PR, handling actors…all his years of admaking and theatre have paid off. We may not make a lot of money on this one, but we will have achieved a big breakthrough. The perception thus far has been TV serials are where all actors sit on a sofa and say their lines. Karishma is about to change all that.

What are your biggest worries at this point of time?
Akash worries more about the acceptance, I am worried about how many episodes I have in the bank. I am not worried about the product, its definitely many notches above the best currently on air.

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How big is your team and how does it function?
I really don’t know how big the team is at present, we just go on adding writers, visualers, editors….Bhowmick for instance, has a different team ready which writes the daily episodes, a creative team that coordinates the dances and the daily situations, the location scouts which have to look for really upscale houses, helicopters, limos…the point is, we don’t have a television mentality, everything is being done on a feature film scale.

Who is your target audience?
Everyone. The three generations that Karisma portrays will appeal to all those generations of viewers. We will be introducing all the main actors in the first episode itself.

What’s next on the agenda?
There’s lots. But first, there’s Karishma. If it succeeds, the sky’s the limit.

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