Payal Ghosh didn’t have a godfather in films when she made her debut with the Manchu Manoj-starrer Prayanam . Passing out of a prominent acting school, Telugu film industry was her grooming ground, right from how she learnt to emote, say her lines and position herself in front of the camera. The actress who went onto act in Ooseravelli, Mr Rascal and a host of Kannada and Tamil films awaits the release of her Hindi-film debut with the Rishi Kapoor-Paresh Rawal starrer Patel Ki Punjabi Shaadi soon. She says she’s more serious about her career than ever before, “Before coming to films I was only loved by my family, now I have so many people who wish good for me. Being an actress and living my dream is a feeling beyond words.”
Paired alongside actor-standup comedian Vir Das in Patel Ki Punjabi Shaadi , she plays a Gujarati girl in the film. Having grown up in Kolkata with a career in Mumbai, she encountered a lot of Gujarati-speaking friends in her life, yet she didn’t have a chance to observe their life closely. It’s her assistant director who came to the rescue with the slang here, “I asked her to speak the language the way she speaks at home. I also took Gujarati classes just to get the accent right. At the end of the day, it was only a Hindi film, what I’d to grasp was the slang and I hope I did that.”
She’s not someone who’d want to go to a film set everyday, she gives equal priority to keep her body in good shape. Even in the films she does, Payal makes it a point to grab roles where the common public could identify with her characterisation. She credits her Telugu film stint to have provided a foundation for that, which she says continues with Patel Ki Punjabi Shaadi too. She wasn’t very conscious of matching up to veterans Rishi Kapoor and Paresh Rawal, “When your co-actor is so good, you too perform better. With actors who’re humble and you can connect with them, the performance felt more like a reaction; it was organic.”
Being a Bengali, dabbling with Gujarati now, having acted in Kannada, Telugu and Tamil films, she still says she is not good at picking up languages. “I’m better at mugging up my lines and reacting according to a situation in the film,” she says acting in a Hindi film now made things easier. “I grew up in Kolkata having watched loads of Hindi movies, I’m good with it and it helps when you want to improvise on sets.”
Acting didn’t come with nervousness in Payal’s initial days though things have changed now. “I’m feeling increasingly conscious about coming to a set on day one now. Though the process eases up later, the start is nerve-wracking. I feel grown up and I’m thinking more about the craft.” Actresses are getting meatier roles in films, she adds, while mentioning that the brief phase where they were only roped in for the songs doesn’t exist now. “My family wasn’t happy with films as a career initially, they want me to be happy regardless of anything now. My immediate goal is to become a better actor and grab big films.”
