Lekha Washington, who began as an actor down South, has spent the last decade building a distinctive artistic practice, creating immersive installations, sculptures and design projects that have earned her recognition beyond the world of cinema. Having just returned from a sailing trip to Tahiti with partner Imran Khan, Lekha is reflective, candid and, perhaps for the first time in years, ready to speak. Having largely stayed silent through years of scrutiny surrounding her personal life, she pours her heart out on love, judgment, healing and the freedom that comes from finally owning her story.

Lekha says, “I’ve spent a decade working down South as an actor and another decade creating art. In between, there was some difficult press. I stayed quiet for a long time, but now I’m easing my throat a little bit. It’s been a journey of opening up. There may be someone out there like me who sees that it’s possible to feel free, even in a culture that often tells you to behave, to clip your wings. The society we live in can be controlling, but we have to resist that. For a while, it left me feeling hopeless. But in this moment, I finally feel a sense of clarity.”

Delving deeper into the scrutiny she has faced over the years, she addresses the labels and judgments that have followed her since her teenage years.

She reflects, “Since I was 16, I’ve been called all kinds of names — growing up in Chennai and even later. Labels like ‘sl*t’ and ‘homewrecker’ are often used to diminish and control women. They don’t define me, and I refuse to shrink myself to fit someone else’s need to cut me down. That’s where I stand today. People who use these labels don’t know the reality. No one truly understands the intricacies of someone else’s relationship, so how can they pass judgment? I’d much rather focus on conversations around my work. After putting out original work, if the first thing people reduce me to is my proximity to a man, that says more about them than it does about me.”

Talking about her relationship with the Jaane Tu... Ya Jaane Na actor, she says, “I am madly in love with this man. I have the greatest delight of getting to be with the man who I’m in love with. It’s a rare gift, one that I want to protect and so it’s not for the world. It is for me. Like any relationship, we’re constantly learning and growing. There are moments when we clash, but there’s also a genuine willingness to evolve. That’s what makes it a mature, grounded relationship — we truly show up for each other. Our families are part of the journey too, and there’s a child in the picture (Imran’s daughter, Imaara with ex-wife Avantika Malik), so it’s been a layered, meaningful ride.”

Before they became a couple, Lekha and Imran had known each other for nearly 15 years, moving within the same circle of friends. It was during the COVID-19 lockdown that their relationship began to take shape. Looking back, she adds, “I was in a formative long-term relationship for a decade beginning in 2009 and while we weren’t legally married, it shaped who I am. In the isolation of COVID, I had to face parts of myself that I had avoided. The subconscious parts of myself that had brought me there. When Imran and I began dating, it wasn’t a fairytale romance - it was two broken people in a broken world trying to pick up the pieces and do better.”

Imran, meanwhile, has been receiving a surge of love on social media that has paved the way for his return to the screen with Adhoore Hum Adhoore Tum and Happy Patel Khatarnak Jasoos. Reflecting on this phase, Lekha shares, “I feel so impressed to witness his journey. I think everything we went through was necessary — we both needed to heal certain fundamental parts of ourselves.”

Professionally, Lekha is in a happy space. Known for her experiential, large-scale and often interactive art installations, her work spans across sculpture, spatial design and kinetics. “Everyone needs a muse, and Imran is my muse,” she says, adding that she’s also excited about her new book, Rewild.

Does she miss acting? Last seen in Kalyana Samayal Saadham (2013), Lekha says, “I know I’ll find my way back to acting — I am, at heart, a performer. But this time, I want to do it on my own terms. Earlier, after doing a couple of Hindi films, I found myself drained by the business of being an actor. As a leading woman, you’re constantly objectified and have to navigate a great deal of misogyny. At the time, I was dealing with it all on my own, and it can be a frustrating space — there’s always someone trying to push you into a corner. A few of the films I worked on also got stalled. That’s when I decided I’d rather channel my energy into work where I have full creative control. In this phase, if I have to pursue acting, I’d rather do it with people who I trust.”

Actor, sculptor and product designer, Lekha Washington talks about juggling her many career choices with elan
Sanaya Chavda (DNA; July 12, 2015)


The balancing act
Lekha completed her Master’s in Filmmaking and Direction from National Institute of Design where she discovered a desire to act, but art and sculpting has always been a part of her life with her having her first exhibition at 18. Ask her which of her many professions she enjoys the most and she says, “My ideal case scenario would be a balance of the different things that I do. Like I need to have performance in my life. I need to have creative pursuits like product design or art in my life, so for me, a perfect balance is when I have some of this and some of that. I’m a greedy person. I was very insecure before being an actor and for me being sort of adulated gave me a sense of — it helped me get over my deep insecurities as a person. I mean I wouldn’t recommend this to anyone but it really gave me a sense of self-confidence that I didn’t have before that.”

Filmi fundas
Aside from some theatre and VJing work and hosting the IPL, it was films that held an appeal for her. She has to her credit Jayamkondaan and Va — Quarter Cutting in Tamil, Kamina, Vedam in Telugu as well as two unreleased films, Peter Gaya Kaam Se and Power in Hindi.

“I really liked the last Tamil film I did — Kalyana Samayal Saadham. It was released about eight months ago and was a massive hit and the character was quite similar to me. In the sense, she was a relaxed fun sort of outspoken person. But I’ve done a couple of roles where I’ve played really out-of-type characters like Va, where I played a suicidal 19-year-old who was depressed. I find that it’s quite interesting to play out-of-type characters. If you’ve seen any films that I’ve done, each character I’ve picked is dramatically different from the other. I think that’s probably the way most actors feel, that it would be nice to play a whole variety of things – I’m happy to play from a prostitute to a 90-year-old, the more varied, the more interesting for me,” she admits. Though she’s found much success in the South, her Bollywood work hasn’t completely taken off. “I got to work with Amitabh Bachchan for Power, so that was cool, very cool actually. I do hope they actually finish it, but Rajkumar Santoshi is not keeping too well. I was heartbroken when the film didn’t release, actually that was the main reason I started my product design company. Power for me was a perfect Bollywood film. The guys who were making it weren’t playing any games, it was clean. Big-ticket film, the script was great. I was really excited about my role. And after it didn’t happen, I lost the will to keep hustling,” explains Lekha.

All about ideas
Lekha started Ajji — The Odd Product Company three years ago to channel her creative energies and some of her designs like The Sink Collection and The Dot Chair have got a great response. “The reason I started it was purely personal — I love ideas. I’ve got an excessive amount of bizarre ideas in my head that I don’t know what to do with. I figured I would start a company that would take one idea and put it into another. The business model is like I’ll make an idea happen, manufacture it, retail it, take the money out of that and put it into the prototyping of another idea. Since I had the luxury of being an actress, being financially capable of creating something that takes time to prototype and I had the money to be able to do that, this is the way I went with it,” she says.

“It’s hard work. Usually with design, to keep it visually simple takes a lot of prototyping and re-prototyping. Quality control is a tough task in this country. Sustaining and manufacturing things over a period of time takes a fair degree of effort. What makes us stand apart is that we’re willing to back the most extreme ideas, the most ridiculous ideas. The harder they are, the more fun they are. I try to push the envelope as far as it can go.”

Artistic love
From innovating to painting and sculpting, Lekha loves art and her recent exhibition at Palladium partnered with Asian Paints Royale Play Artist Circle was one of many. “I used to paint, but gave it up when I went to NID. Sculpting just comes naturally to me. Initially, when I started off being a sculptor, I found it really easy to replicate something in clay. But right now, what I find more fun is an idea in my head that I can make come alive. I like the idea of shock-and-awe, making people feel... which I think a lot of times with current art people intellectualise it quite a lot — the way you react to a piece of art, that first initial reaction is fairly valuable to me. I realised the common element with a lot of my work is the element of surprise. Originally, people would walk past the dot chair, now they’re sitting in it and the fact that you can sit in it and it’s comfortable, is surprising. With Old Love (15-foot ball), it seems like a weighty, heavy ball-and-chain but it’s floating. I feel like things aren’t always what they seem. I like to play with that notion.”

Time to unwind
Ask Lekha what she does during her time off and she laughs, saying she has virtually none. “I was quite the diver. I like adventure sports in general. But I haven’t done it in a year-and-a-half. I really like to travel too. I used to take the money I’ve earned and jet off on a ridiculous trip. I’ve become a little more rooted now,” she says. As for future plans: “Sleep and more sleep. I have too many plans. As you can see, I’m trying to have three full-time careers at once. I’m a little ambitious or foolish. Immediately, I’m having an exhibition at Sakshi Salon — the Gauri Khan studio in Bandra on the 16th, so I’m working towards that. In November, I’m having a larger solo show and want to take Ajji and my art international. Also, I want to direct a film, write a book and own 12 cats. I’m going mad!” she signs off.