The next step was set decoration. "In those days, decoration was not something a producer wanted to spend too much on. I started going through books to see what makes space more intimate, as opposed to just keeping random big objects to fill up space. So if I had to do up a dressing table, I would decorate it with jewellery and makeup."
It was Yash Chopra's Aaina (Jackie Shroff, Amrita Singh, Juhi Chawla) that proved to be a break for Sharmishtha. "Yashji noticed my work in this film, and kept an eye on me. Eventually, he offered me a film -- Yeh Dillagi (Akshay Kumar, Saif Ali Khan, Kajol) -- independently."
At the same time, Sharmishtha was assisting her father on D Rama Naidu's films. The Telugu movie mogul offered her a film called Anari (Karisma Kapoor, Venkatesh). And that's when Sharmishtha's career took off in 1994.
But it wasn't until three years later that she got her first real break, with Yash Chopra's Dil Toh Pagal Hai (Madhuri Dixit, Shah Rukh Khan, Akshay Kumar, Karisma Kapoor).
Image: Karan Johar likes his sets larger than life. Rich, but tasteful. And who better than to locate sets like these than Sharmishtha Roy?
Also read: SRK, Rani, spotted in the US
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