Shefali Shah in moments from Monsoon Wedding and Waqt

A don?s wife in Satya, a spunky girl suffering and spilling a family secret in Monsoon Wedding, a US-bred Tamilian mother of two in 15, Park Avenue, and an ageing wife to Amitabh Bachchan in Waqt. The roles may not be chunky, but they sure have been important. And that is what matters most for Shefali Shah, who believes in the complexity of the character than on its screen length.

?Satya was easy because my role was a caricature of someone. She is Maharashtrian and as the wife of a don, she is aggressive,? says Shefali, who started her acting career on the Gujarati stage before moving to TV with popular serials like Campus and Banegi Aapni Baat.

?In Monsoon Wedding, I had a fabulous role and I just loved the movie. From that film, I learnt how an actor remains in the background when needed. We suffer from insecurity and usually think that we have to prove ourselves in every sequence. But in Monsoon Wedding, my character Ria is just there; she comes into the foreground only when she is needed. That is during the last sequence, the wedding scene, when she flares up and reveals a completely different personality. I worked very hard for this project. We had workshops conducted by Naseeruddin Shah for 15-20 days,? says Shefali, now waiting for the release of husband Vipul Shah?s Waqt, also starring Akshay Kumar and Priyanka Chopra.

?In Waqt, the husband-wife relationship between Amitabhji and myself is slightly different than usual. Here, he?s very emotional and I am more like a man,? she says.

What about 15, Park Avenue? ?I have a small role but it is extremely layered. She goes through her insecurities, besides being a very good friend to her husband (played by Rahul Bose). My character Lakshmi has been brought up in the US and she is very restrained in showing emotions,? says she.

Having worked with Mira Nair and Aparna Sen, Shefali feels women film-makers like to go into the intricacies of emotions, ?delving deep into the subtext and the layers?. ?They work on very small nuances, though it would be unfair to categorise? Aparnadi would express an emotion to me, while Mira let me do what I felt.?

After Ram Gopal Varma, Nair and Sen, Shefali is transitioning into yet another complex role ? playing Kasturba Gandhi in theatre director Feroz Khan?s screen adaptation of his hugely successful stage production, Mahatma vs Gandhi. ?It is not a historical account of Gandhi but focuses on the private aspects of his personality. It?s about his relationship with son Harilal and about a mother trapped between her husband and son,? says Shefali. The film stars Akshay Khanna as Harilal and Bhoomika Chawla as his wife.

Though television had made her a household face some years ago, it does not figure on her agenda anymore. ?I had two babies back to back and I can?t follow a 20-days-a-month shoot schedule,? signs off Shefali.