Kubbra Sait has never hesitated to speak about the inner landscape that fuels her craft. Known for her unfiltered performances and her ability to embody layered, challenging characters, she often reflects on the emotional discipline that acting demands. In this personal reflection, she opens up about the moment she truly grasped what it means to access emotions responsibly, bravely, and with intention. It was a lesson she learned early in her journey, one that continues to anchor her both on screen and in her everyday life.

Kubbra Sait opens up on emotional vulnerability in acting: “You can’t be an actor if you can’t access your emotions”

Kubbra stated, “As an actor, I’ve learnt that you simply cannot be one if you’re not willing to access your emotions. And accessing those emotions, it can be a very, very dangerous path. I remember learning this from one of my directors, Anurag Kashyap. The first time I had to cry on cue, I had no idea how I was going to do it. That was the fear sitting loudest in my mind before performing my scene. He looked at me and said, ‘We’re going to sit here, read the lines, and just be with ourselves. We’re going to open that window inside you so the emotions can come in. And before we leave tonight, we’re going to close that window again.’ That stayed with me. We all have that window this access point to our emotional world. The ability to open it and close it is what keeps us balanced, what keeps us alive. But outside acting, in the life we return to, the world isn’t always so mindful. Sometimes there are floodgates.

She added, “Sometimes our emotions take over us. And in the chaos of the lives we live today, we often get confused in our own thoughts and the way we express ourselves. We start calling everything a ‘trigger’, when sometimes we’re simply annoyed, or frustrated. A trigger pulls us back into our past… but annoyance and frustration belong to the present. Learning the difference, understanding that window within us it’s what saved me as an actor, and it’s what grounds me as a person.”

Kubbra’s reflection serves as a reminder that emotional access isn’t just a creative skill it’s a deeply human practice that calls for responsibility. Actors don’t simply tap into emotions for a scene; they also learn how to step back from them, how to close the door they deliberately opened. In a world where feelings can easily overwhelm or be misunderstood, her insight becomes a quiet guide: to recognise what belongs to the past, what belongs to the present, and how to move between the two without losing ourselves. It’s a lesson in acting, yes but more than that, it’s a lesson in living.

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