Sumukhi Suresh can't keep calm. Not that she wants to. The stand-up comedian is currently touring across the country with her show Hoemonal, which she kicked off in Europe. Just a couple of months ago, she wrote dialogues for Vikramaditya Motwane's Netflix screen-life thriller CTRL. And soon, she'll be seen acting in Netflix show The Royals. Juggling three hats demands a lot of agility, but not when you're Sumukhi, who can dump all three hats in a big hat and wear it like a boss.

No juggling, only hustling

“Honestly, I like to do all three, and if I get a chance, maybe more. I'm that artist who has to do everything to be a good artist. I find it easier to have a range in what I do,” says Sumukhi in an exclusive interview. She also feels the three inform each other tremendously. For instance, while she could use her improv skills to make her Royals character her own, she was wary of not trampling on the writing. “I'm a writer myself so I don't want to disturb their framework, something they've created so painstakingly,” she adds.

With The Royals, Sumukhi returns to acting three years after Hum Do Teen Chaar, her Amazon MiniTV show with fellow comic Biswa Kalyan Rath. The writer and the stand-up comedian had taken forefront ever since she started her content house Motormouth Writers, which specialises in telling stories of ‘villain-ish' women. But with her joining Dharma Cornerstone Agency, she feels acting would soon cease to be on the backseat. “I don't think it's as much backseat as much as honestly, the opportunities. I want to do everything, which is great, but I can alone not manage everything, right? The right managing of it is giving me the opportunity to explore everything to its fullest,” Sumukhi stresses.

Hoemonal imbalance

The only thing that Sumukhi isn't being able to balance, of all the things she slays, is her hormones. “When I turned 30, I was asked to dial down on dating like most women in India, but we want to explore that side. It's very tough for girls to date in their 30s because the ‘options’ are ‘reduced',” Sumukhi says. But she's using all the imbalance and ‘misfortunes’ as ammunition for her Hoemonal tour, the next stop of which is in Mumbai on December 6. “The writing is satricial and personal, and eventually, hopefully, sombre. ‘Hoemonal’ because I'm failing at being a ‘hoe’ while managing my hormonal issues,” she adds.

Sumukhi has a penchant for taking these bad words for women and turning them into gold. Whether it's her hoodies with ‘Hoe’ written on them or her earlier shows called ‘Disgust Me’, in which she only invited women and discussed everything disgusting, Sumukhi doesn't mind pulling her punches when it comes to talking about hormonal impulses. The most notable instance of that is her Prime Video show Pushpavalli, which revolves around a woman who moved cities for a boy and relentlessly stalks him. She normalised women as stalkers without ever endorsing the act.

The Pushpavalli axe

Pushpavalli ran successfully for two seasons, before the third one got axed. That was never Sumukhi's call to take, but she feels retrospectively that it all happened at the right time. “The direction of OTT also changed. Pushpavalli came out at a very good time. I'm really glad it was a part of a really good series of shows they (Prime Video India) had at that time. I don't think Pushpavalli would survive now. I think it came out then and is ageing well,” Sumukhi reasons. “It (show not getting renwed) was very okay for me, surprisingly. If there wasn't a season 2, I'd have been very sad. My actors are not over it, my writers aren't over it, and my director is definitely not over it, but I am,” she adds.

Sumukhi also attributes it to her romantic notion of not giving an end to the character's love life. She also moved cities for a boy, and realised the hard way that hustle doesn't always guarantee wins, especially in matters of the heart. “I'm being very poetic and very writer here, isn't it romantic that she didn't get an ending? Which is also what her life is. So of course, there isn't season 3 because she's not meant to finish her story. I've come to terms with it like that,” Sumukhi confesses. It also helped that she started Motormouth, and eventually landed a Vikramaditya Motwane film to write dialogues for.

Staking directors now

“Every project I do, I want you to wonder, ‘How did Sumukhi get there?’ Like CTRL is tech and thriller, but it's so cool! So I want you to go, ‘Really? She tried this now?’ So that's why I wanted to work with Vikramaditya Motwane – every time he does something, it's different than the last one,” Sumukhi says of his director's rich, genre-hopping filmography. She remembers watching Udaan at a time when she was “nowhere close to stage,” and wanting to work with him. “Even though I'm a full-on Dharma girl, but the emotionality in Motwane's films isn't high because it's heightened, but because of the situation. And that's really poetic,” Sumukhi adds.

Writing for CTRL also fetched her a compliment from Anurag Kashyap. Motwane recently joked that Sumukhi and Anurag have something in common as dialogue writers – delivering the final draft a night before shoot. Sumukhi pleads guilty and justifies that she keeps “rewriting and rewriting,” but doesn't mind the comparison one bit. “Anurag Kashyap is the gold standard of dialogue writing. Comparing me to him in any way is great. Also, Vikram told me you're one of my favourite dialogue writers. And I said, ‘Really? I’ve made it? I've reached the top 10?' I think I really pissed off the male writers. The fun part was pissing off the boys. It's fair, it's like Tina Fey coming and saying Sumukhi isn't my favourite writer, some guy is. I'd be like, ‘Shut up Tina!'”

But if she's really a Dharma girl as she claims – and is now represented by DCA – why has she never stalked Karan Johar like she did Motwane at an event to tell him that she is desperate to collaborate. “Of course, I want to work with Karan Johar. Who doesn't? But I think that's not the right approach. Dharma is a different breed. My first memory of movies is Kuch Kuch Hota Hai. I came to the city not even thinking I'd ever meet Karan Johar,” Sumukhi says. She even thought it's a prank when the filmmaker slid into her DMs and sent a long note about loving Pushpavalli. “I thought it's one of those where you write Karan Johar and add a blue tick in your name. When I realised, I just went home, cooked, and said, ‘What! He really messaged!’ So meeting him is of course, wow, but to impress him, that's next level. To the eight-year-old Sumukhi, that's, ‘Damn!’”

Also on Sumukhi's dream list is Piku and October writer Juhi Chaturvedi and Bridgerton creator Shonda Rhimes. “I want to be like Shonda Rhimes in life. The power she's had in creating these properties. Just look at Bridgerton ya! That's why I wanted to make Motormouth, to build a team that makes shows for streaming platforms. It'll take time, but I'm in no rush,” says Sumukhi. When I give her a lead that she could probably get pally with Banita Sandhu, who has worked with both Juhi and Shonda in October and Bridgerton season 3 respectively, she says. "Oh yes, she's one step closer to Shonda. I gotta be friends with Banita now. I'm glad you're following up on my networking, I really appreciate it,” quips Sumukhi.

Sumukhi is currently waiting for the volatility of the streaming industry to settle down before she can pitch the three IPs she's developed under Motormouth, along with a film she's co-writing with Vir Das. As she continues to hustle, she doesn't forget manifesting either. “Working with Vikramaditya Motwane is a classic Sumukhi way of just hustling, just getting behind it. But the potential working with Karan Johar in the future is more like dream come true. Two different feelings – one, I've earned it, and the other, hopefully reaches me for all the things I'm doing,” she says.

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