Ananya Panday says she is ‘fighting audience’s perception’ about her: ‘People put you in a box’

Actor Ananya Panday, set to make her web series debut with Call Me Bae, says she wants to break out of her perceived image in the audience and industry, and that will happen when she is in a position to say no to offers that feed into a certain stereotype.

Call Me Bae, directed by Collin D'Cunha and created by Ishita Moitra, sees Ananya's Bae leading a privileged life in New Delhi, before she is disowned by her family. The eight-episode series will debut on Prime Video on September 6.

The actor, who made her debut with 2019's rom-com Student of the Year 2, said "fighting perception" is a challenge that she continues to deal with as an individual. "When you start up with a certain kind of film, people put you in a box and they would expect the same thing from you. So, I'm fighting the perception of what the audience thinks of me and the kind of work you get within the industry. When something of yours does well, you get the same offers, and it is up to us as actors if we have that position where we can say no," Ananya told PTI in an interview here.

Sometimes saying no is more important than yes because that defines you as an actor and a person, she added. "You can be scared that, ‘Oh this is such a big opportunity, what if I say no to this'. But then, in the long term, it does well because you are not feeding into a stereotype. "You are reinventing, challenging yourself and doing something different. All this might mean that you are missing out on something that seems big but actually, you are choosing growth over doing something similar." Call Me Bae marks the web series debut for the 25-year-old, whose previous films such as Gehraiyaan and Kho Gaye Hum Kahan were direct-to-digital releases.

Ananya said playing Bae, a young woman who goes on riches to rags journey, was a "dream role" for her. "They sent me eight episodes in a go, and when I read it, I felt, ‘I'm could die to be part of this'. As a character, there's so much to do, so much to chew on. There are so many layers to the character.

"There's a full journey, and the audience goes through everything with her. That was very exciting. But just not the character, even the story that it is. It is very light, fun and happy but there's something that we are trying to say by the end of the show, there's a big message there." The actor said it took her some time to adjust to the set of Call Me Bae after finishing work on Vikramaditya Motwane's cyber thriller CTRL and Kho Gaye Hum Kahan, a coming-of-age buddy drama directed by Arjun Varain Singh.

"It was like a breath of fresh air, we all enjoyed coming on sets, having fun, and playing with each other. I was coming from Motwane sir's film, I had done Kho Gaye Hum Kahan. So, on the first day, I was being very subtle, I was doing internal acting, and Colin was like, ‘This will not work here, you need to put the energy up'. It took us a few days to find our rhythm and then we all found the tone together," she added.

Ananya said she wasn't offered anything in the long storytelling format before Call Me Bae. "When we were shooting for Kho Gaye Hum Kahan (on Netflix) we didn't know whether it would go on OTT or not. So, there were offers for direct-to-OTT but this is my first show...This zone (OTT) excites me because everything we see is a little dark and heavy, and I miss eating and binge-watching something with my friends. I would like to bring light to people in these dark times (through the show).”

The series also gave her a chance to explore her character deeply, she said. "Even though when you do a film, you still have the same amount of work and backstories, you don't have that much screen time to show all of the facets. Some of the stuff gets lost in subtlety and context. But with the show, there was so much that I could do, like with every episode there were pages of back story that I could bring into the show, and show it in small scenes...As an audience I'm loyal to so many TV show characters, they stay with me as we go with them through so many seasons. You almost grow up with them, so they become a part of your family."

This is also a first attempt for Ananya, daughter of actor Chunky Panday, to be part of an out-and-out comedy. "It was a task to become Bae and play that character. I don't make those expressions, and it takes a lot of practice because you can end up looking funny, making certain faces or saying certain things. You have to find the fine line between being a caricaturist and finding a character. So, it was not easy, it was tough having that energy, and figuring out comic timing because I had not done comedy before. My dad is known for comedy but I had never done it before, so there were a lot of things that had to be worked around,” she said.

The actor said there are "more differences" between her and Bae, a billionaire fashionista, than similarities. "People have that perception but the more you get to know me, people realise that I'm not like that... The character that's closest to me is Aahana from Kho Gaye Hum Kahan, I could feel she is very similar to how I am. But with Bae, I've not lived the way she has, so I was like, ‘What is she saying? What is she doing?' as she comes from the uber privileged (class) where she has been very protected. I was always allowed to be whatever I wanted to be, and my parents never said, ‘You can't do this because you are a girl'. Bae couldn't do a lot of things and her brother was allowed to do so many more things, she was meant to be married off at a very young age, and that life has been decided for her. My life has been very different from that."

Call Me Bae also features Vir Das, Gurfateh Pirzada, Varun Sood, Vihaan Samat, Muskkaan Jaferi, Niharika Lyra Dutt, Lisa Mishra, and Mini Mathur in pivotal roles. The series is executive produced by Dharmatic Entertainment's Karan Johar, Apoorva Mehta, and Somen Mishra.

Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by DNA staff and is published from PTI

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