Richa Chadha feels 2026 is the year of Ali Fazal: ‘He lived in a shanty, had just a bicycle’ - The Indian Express

A couple of years after becoming a mother to her and husband Ali Fazal’s daughter Zuneyra Ida Fazal, Richa Chadha is taking it slow. She’s shooting for a Netflix India show, and is all set to launch her travel show Musafiri on her new YouTube channel this Friday on September 25. The weekly series is both written and narrated by Richa, the first season of which explores Mumbai in all its rich cultural, architectural, and anthropological glory. The series starts with a confession that she felt the need to make it after motherhood changed her forever.

While she’s always been vocal against environmental and sociopolitical excesses, she’s found another reason to double down on that. “Questioning the world also comes from motherhood. That’s why people ask, ‘What will we leave behind for our children?’ This is a big reason for me to do the show. I’ve had this research document for 12 years, but I finally acted on it after becoming a mom,” Richa tells SCREEN in an exclusive interview. The first two episodes of the show explore gems hiding in plain sight — an Armenian church in Kala Ghoda and Gilbert Hill in Andheri, a 66 million years old rock formed by cooling molten lava from a volcanic eruption.

Richa admits that while content creators like Archana Puran Singh and Farah Khan now make more money a year through YouTube than they do from their respective film careers, she doesn’t have a revenue model for her travel show yet. In fact, Phull Stop, her new YouTube channel on which Musafiri will stream, has just been started from scratch.  “I feel I make money, yaar. I’m not chasing money otherwise I’d do a platform deal before putting it out. But instead, I have a new channel with no subscribers that I’m launching it with. But I feel people would take to it because there’s a lot of curiosity around India,” argues Richa.

While she has no sponsors onboard yet, she wouldn’t mind seamless brand integrations because her travel show does have the scope for that. “The fourth episode is about how Mumbai got rich, and it’s all about the big business families. It’ll mention the Wadias and the Tatas. So, if it’s a seamless integration, I’d be up for it,” says the actor. More seasons of the show will explore other cities of India and the world. “As of now, it’s just Mumbai. Because we don’t have the money for boarding and lodging of my crew in other cities,” she adds, channeling her signature candid humour.

Richa becoming a mother coincided with her and Ali starting a production house, Pushing Button Studios, which has also bankrolled Musafiri. The banner, which also produced Shuchi Talati’s 2024 critically acclaimed coming-of-age film Girls Will Be Girls, is still in a nascent stage. Richa admits balancing both her babies — her daughter and her production house — is no cakewalk. “It’s very difficult. I cry out of frustration. I’ve come back from something so transformative, and now have to multitask like a pro. “This is just that phase of my life where I have to raise a child, run a production company, focus on my acting career, and get back to my own health,” she says.

Richa recalls obsessively raising her first baby — her production house — till moments before she delivered her second. “I was unable to relax even on an epidural because I realized, ‘Oh my god, this email has grammatical errors!’ So, I snuck my phone into my hospital gown, went to the washroom, and started to type out while taking a leak. Only then I went for my delivery. I felt like I was just buzzing for a few months after that, and then my health forced me to take rest. But this is also the modern surroundings that you almost feel guilty taking a break for yourself. It’s capitalism,” asserts Richa.

What helped Richa was a realization that probably every mother goes through after giving birth — that their life is not their alone anymore. “In the very first few days after giving birth, I realized as far as this relationship is concerned, the ‘selfish’ part of my personality will just have to melt away. I’m just a service provider for this being, who’ll need to be fed every few hours. Whether I’ve had sleep, rest or food, it doesn’t matter. When that dawns on women, that there are no off days on this job, it’s a big shift to realize that this one thing is insular and everything will cater to this being now,” confesses the actor.

But taking a backseat from her primary occupation of acting hasn’t stopped Richa from championing Ali, who’s arguably had his career-best year with three critically acclaimed and commercially successful consecutive projects — Prosit Roy’s Prime Video India crime show Raakh, Shakun Batra’s segment in Netflix India’s romantic anthology Lust Stories 3, and most crucially, Gurmeet Singh’s crime thriller Mirzapur: The Movie, which has amassed over Rs 220 crore at the domestic box office so far. “What a year he’s having! How can I not champion him?,” says an elated Richa.

With a slower return to acting, and her partner’s career flourishing, is her state of mind not more complex than just harbouring boundless pride? “Of course, it’s more complex than just being supportive, but not this year. We’ve been together for a long time. We’ve been married for six years. When I see the culmination of all the hard work he’s done over the years in 2026, there’s no complexity. There’s just pure happiness. I’ve seen him at the time when he lived in a shanty and owned a bicycle. He’s not only my partner, but also my friend. To see him overcome everything is just a very different feeling. I feel like maine iss din ke liye isko paal pos ke bada kiya hai,” says Richa.

Richa hails it as a collective win because not just Ali, but also she has been at the receiving end of naysaying towards him. “When I announced my relationship, two members from the film industry called me and said, ‘Iss ladke ka kuchh nahi hoga‘. From everyone writing him off to almost making fun of him when his film with Judi Dench came out, to see him get both critical love and box office success, I’m very happy,” she adds, referring to Stephen Frears’ 2017 Hollywood period film Victoria & Abdul. “I can tell you that two people had said about that film, ‘Isko kaise mil gaya?’ To hold your own in front of Judi Dench is very hard,” argues Richa.

Richa, who was last seen in Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s 2024 period show Heeramandi: The Diamond Bazaar, says she’s finished shooting for another Netflix India series. “It was very difficult. The first day of shooting was in December or January. I was very energetic in the morning, but after lunch hours, I almost slept off in my chair. I had to pop a lot of multivitamins to get back. Physically, it was very challenging,” admits the actor, but adds that it helped she could do it at her own pace. “They were also aware I’m a new mom, so they made me work for eight hours instead of 10. They kept the shooting close to my place, so I could bring my daughter along. I wanted the first project to be very comfortable because my body couldn’t take it otherwise,” she adds.