Shirley Setia, who hopes to translate her social media equity on the big screen, on being an accidental celebrity
Kunal Guha (MUMBAI MIRROR; August 11, 2019)

When YouTube star Shirley Setia shot her first AMA (Ask Me Anything) in July 2013, someone asked her if she had been “contacted by Bollywood”. Then the resident of Auckland, who was known for her sprightly covers of popular Hindi film numbers, had a regretful response: “No, not yet,” she said, and added, “I am not even sure if I am good enough yet.”

Today, the 24-year-old has leveraged her social media clout and talent to bag her big Bollywood debut in the forthcoming Nikamma opposite Abhimanyu Dassani. She will even be seen in a web series that also stars Manisha Koirala. And to think it all began on a whim six years ago, when Setia uploaded her first video — a cover of “Tum Hi Ho” (Aashiqui 2). Shot in Setia’s sparsely furnished bedroom at 1.30 am, the video has her crooning away in her PJs. “I showed it to a friend and she said I should upload it,” says Setia. It took a fortnight before Setia’s creation went viral; the video went on to garner over three million views. The New Zealand Herald even dubbed her ‘Pyjama Popstar’. “If I knew it would reach so many people in so many countries, I would have shot it differently,” she admits.

Setia’s self-edited music videos have acquired much cinematic flair since; they’ve evolved from blurry webcam renditions to those shot in scenic outdoor settings, sometimes even backed by a storyline. But like her favourite YouTuber, Superwoman Lilly Singh, she’s retained even those videos that don’t boast of enviable production values. “It’s all a part of my journey, so why be embarrassed by it? I’ve never deleted a single video that I’ve uploaded,” she says.

Growing up in a “Bollywood-obsessed home” in Auckland, Setia inherited a healthy appetite for Kishore Kumar and R D Burman hits. But to consider professionally covering their music was never on the cards. In fact “singing just randomly happened” for her. In 2015, when she shared her career plans with her father, he felt she had lost her lid, given she had hardly any training. “When I’d watch TV shows like Indian Idol and Sa Re Ga Ma Pa, I would feel ‘inhe toh music aata hain... I don’t even know how to play a musical instrument or the lingo... what ‘taal’, ‘chords’ or ‘octaves’ meant’.”

Setia’s insecurities were amplified when she started putting up content on the internet. Given the nature of the medium, she was served with love and hate in equal measure. “People would comment saying, ‘She doesn’t know how to sing’; ‘She uses Autotune’; ‘Why are we making someone who doesn’t even live in India so popular?’.”

By the time Setia made her debut as a playback singer in Sachin Jigar’s A Gentleman, she had already opened for Armaan Malik on his US and UK tour, and even performed “Waada Raha” on stage along with Akshay Kumar and Twinkle Khanna at an event in Hong Kong — videos of these gigs went just as viral as most of Setia’s covers.

At the brink of a career transition, Setia recalls that bagging her acting debut wasn’t as easy. Following a string of rejections, including for Punit Malhotra’s Student Of The Year 2, Setia decided to hone her craft. “When you’re constantly gig-ing, there’s only so much mind space that you can allocate to try something new. So I decided to take time out and went to New York to learn acting for two months.” Now, she’s become “more attentive to the surroundings” when on camera. “But the biggest challenge is hiding that you’re tired when you’re on camera,” she says. “When the audience sees you in a film, they shouldn’t be able to tell that it has been shot at 5 am, after a grueling day of shoot.”

While her staggering social media following keenly awaits Setia’s big screen debut, she says, “I don’t think I’ve ‘arrived’ yet. When people appreciate my work, it will be worth it. It’s what I’ve always worked for.”