The Bengali beauty may not have an impressive repertoire since her debut in 2008 with an English film Sharpe’s Peril, but her career has started to look up now. Payal Ghosh is known to Telugu audiences as Haarika, her character in Manchu Manoj-starrer Prayanam . “Only when you do justice to your role, do people identify you with the character. That is why they have forgotten my real name,” she quips while talking about her forthcoming films.
She wishes to be a bit careful this time; and will take up only interesting projects when they are offered. Earlier she had done Rascal which was a dud at the box office and though she had worked in it earlier, it got released after Ooservelli; that almost jeopardised her career.
Right now Payal Ghosh is wrapping up director Sanjay Chhel’s film that has Vir Das playing the lead role; she is the heroine. Popular writer in Hindi movies, Sanjay Chhel has made Khoobsurat, Maan Gaye Mughal e Azam, Kya Dil Ne Kahan etc. She describes Vir Das as a cool guy who carries no ego or baggage despite being popular. She adds, “In that movie Paresh Rawal plays my dad and Rishi Kapoor his father. It is a rom com. I am a Gujarati conservative girl who values virtues, tradition and likes to be the way her dad wants her to be and then she falls in love with a Punjabi. I have worn typical Gujju salwar kurti and I am given a completely homely look.”
Though Payal took Gujarati classes for a month to get the accent right, she found it easy as there are quite a few Gujaratis in Mumbai and her language Bengali and Gujarati are both similar. She adds, “Gujaratis use a lot of ‘chey’and though the language has a lot of Hindi words, it sounds like Bengali. . The first one month I was on a completely vegetarian diet. It sounds funny but I was told that a veggie diet would give one a simple look whereas a non-veg diet makes one look hot. I believe I was stripped of my glamour but I now do look very toned. Sanjay Chhel’s movie is releasing in July.”
The actor has done a Tamil film Therodum Vidhiyile and that has Navin Chandra of Andala Rakshasi as her hero. It is a love story with a violent background and unemployed youth wherein Subramanyapuram Payal again plays a conservative Tamil girl. A yet-to-be-released film Freedom by director Vivek Agnihotri is a socio-political movie that deals with the conditions of youngsters around the Emergency period.
