Mumbai:
Actress Ananya Panday is making her web serial debut Call me Baesays that he wants to break away from the image he perceives in the public and in the industry, and that happens when he is able to say no to offers that affect a certain stereotype.
Call me BaeDirected by Collin D’Cunha and created by Ishita Moitra, Ananya’s Bae lives a privileged life in New Delhi before being disowned by her family. The eight-episode series premieres on Prime Video on September 6.
An actor who made his debut in the 2019 rom-com Student of the year 2said “fighting perception” is a challenge he continues to face as an individual.
“When you start a certain kind of film, people put you in a box and expect the same from you.
“So, I am fighting the perception of what the audience thinks of me and what kind of work you get in the industry. When one of you does well, you get the same offers and it depends on us as actors we have that position where we can say no,” Ananya told PTI in this interview .
Sometimes saying no is more important than saying yes because it defines you as an actor and as a person, he added.
“You can be afraid that ‘Oh this is such a great opportunity, what if I say no to this’. But then in the long run it works well because you don’t feed into the stereotype. “You’re reinventing yourself, challenging yourself and doing something different. All this might mean you lose something that looks big, but in reality you choose to grow instead of doing something similar.” “Call Me Bae” is the web series debut of the 25-year-old whose previous films include “Gehraiyaan” and “Kho Gaye Hum Kahan”. were directly digital publications.
Ananya said that playing Bae, a young woman who embarks on a rags-to-riches journey, was a “dream role” for her.
“They sent me eight episodes at once, and when I read it, I was like, ‘I could die to be a part of this.’ The character has so much to do, so much to chew on. so many layers to the character.
“There’s a full journey, and the audience goes through everything with him. It was very exciting. But not just the character, even the story that it is. It’s very light and funny and happy, but there’s something that we’re trying to say in the show by the end there’s a big message.” The actor said it took him some time to adjust to ‘Call Me Bae’ after landing work in 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 stage, having fun and playing with each other. I came from Motwane Sir’s film, I had done ‘Kho Gaye Hum Kahan’.”
“So the first day I was very subtle, I was acting internally, and Colin said, ‘This isn’t working here, you need to add energy’. It took a few days to find our rhythm and then we all found the tone together,” he added.
Ananya said that she was not offered anything in the form of long story-telling before ‘Call Me Bae’.
“When we were shooting for ‘Kho Gaye Hum Kahan’ (on Netflix), we didn’t know if it would go OTT or not. So, there were offers to go straight to OTT, but this is my first gig…
“This zone (OTT) excites me because everything we see is a bit dark and heavy, and I miss eating and watching with friends. I would like to bring light to people in these dark times (through the show).” The series also gave him the opportunity to explore his character deeply , he said.
“Even when you’re making a movie, you still have the same amount of work and backstory, you don’t have as much screen time to show all the sides. Some of the stuff gets lost in subtlety and context. But there was so much I could do on The Show, like every episode had pages of backstory that I could bring to the show and show it in small scenes…
“As an audience, I’m loyal to so many characters on a TV show, they stick with me as we go through so many seasons with them. You almost grow up with them, so they become part of your family.” This is also actor Chunky Panday’s daughter Ananya’s first attempt to be a part of a blockbuster comedy.
“It was a task to become Bae and play that character. I don’t do those expressions, and it takes a lot of practice because you end up looking funny, making certain faces or saying certain things. You have to find a fine line between being a caricaturist and finding the character.
“So, it wasn’t easy, it was hard to get that energy and come up with a comic because I hadn’t done comedy before. My dad is known for comedy, but I’d never done it before, so there were a lot of things that had to be dealt with,” he said.
The actress said she and Bae, a billionaire fashionista, have “more differences” than similarities.
“People have that perception, but the more you get to know me, people realize I’m not like that… The closest character to me is Aahana Kho from Gaye Hum Kahan, I felt she was very similar to How am I, but I haven’t lived her way, so I asked, ‘What is he saying?’ because he comes from an uber privileged class where he is well protected.
“I was always allowed to be whatever I wanted, and my parents never said, ‘You can’t do this because you’re a girl.’ Bae couldn’t do many things, and her brother was allowed to do that. many other things, she was meant to be married very young, and life is decided for him.” “Call Me Bae” also stars 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.
