Another Bengali bombshell, Payal Ghosh, is making her debut with Patel Ki Punjabi Shaadi. Filmfare profiles the newcomer
Right from when she was in school in Kolkata, Payal Ghosh had her set of admirers. Some even lounged around her building, waiting to catch a glimpse of the pretty girl. Her cousins teased her about it, saying that she should be in films as she already had a flock of diehard fans. Being an actor was furthest in her mind then. But she admits that the germ of that idea been planted back then. “I grew up in a protective cocoon. I belong to a large family and was pampered by all. They were pretty conservative so there was no question of me joining films. Sometimes, the boys hanging around needed to be chased away and we laughed about it.”
Cut to 2009, when her first Telugu film, Prayanam, was released in Hyderabad. She was all of 17 and like any other teenager, had gone to a mall for some retail therapy unaware of her newfound stardom. Suddenly, she found people staring at her and pointing towards her. Some even came forward for an autograph. Soon, a huge crowd gathered and she had to be hastily escorted out of the mall. “My mind went back to those days when my cousins teased me about becoming a star. I realised I had suddenly become one. It was a rush like never before. I had done the film for a lark but I realised that I could not return to my normal life now.”
She recounts how she bagged the film. Incidentally, South director Chandra Sekhar Yeleti was auditioning for his next film. She had accompanied her friend for it. She was also cajoled to give the audition. Yeleti wanted a fresh-faced teenager for the role and immediately liked her. Payal didn’t know anything about South cinema and had to be given all sorts of assurances before she said yes.“I feared that my father wouldn’t agree. I also thought that since it’s a South film, no one in Kolkata would know anything about it. So why not do it for the experience. I found out that the director was a National Award winner. And my co-star, Manoj Manchu, was Lakshmi Manchu’s brother and came from a well-connected family. So I said yes and embarked on the journey of my life.”
Pranayam proved to be a big hit and she went on to do more films down South, not only in Telugu but in Tamil and even Kannada. She hasn’t done a Malayalam film yet but is waiting for the right offer. She thanks the dubbing technology for helping her survive down South. “I don’t know the languages at all, just some rudimentary phrases. But as we don’t work in a sync environment and dub it all later, it becomes easier. My dialogue is written in English. There are people who teach me the right modulation. You accomplish it through trial and error.” With time, she has come to like the South cuisine as well. “Initially, I craved for home-cooked food. It was hard to source authentic Bengali food in South locations and the sensible course was to adjust one’s palate to the local fare. Now, I can have sambar anytime and with anything,” she giggles.
It was Bharat Patel, the producer of her hit film Ooseravelli, who helped her find a foothold in Hindi films. “Bharatji is a big distributor of Hindi films in Gujarat. He came to know that director Sanjay Chell wanted a new face for his upcoming comedy Patel Ki Punjabi Shaadi and suggested my name. I auditioned for the part and got selected.”
She’s thankful for the role as it helped her gain proximity with the likes of Rishi Kapoor and Paresh Rawal, two actors she had grown up watching and had always admired. Paresh plays her father in the film and became a mentor of sorts on the set. “Pareshji makes it all look so effortless,” she gushes. “I had to adopt Gujarati nuances for my role. I couldn’t have wished for a better person than him to teach me all those subtleties.” Rishi Kapoor, who plays her romantic lead, Vir Das’s, father in the film, brought in his bag of tricks too. “He’s suave and has this characteristic swagger. You look at him and you know you’re looking at a star. But when the camera comes on, all that goes away and he becomes his character. The transformation is amazing.”
All her films earlier were intense romances. Payal hasn’t done a romcom before and it helped having stand-up comic as Vir Das as her co-star. “Vir is an accomplished actor. He knows how to get under the skin of his character. And being a stage comedian, he knows how to read the atmosphere and change accordingly. In a comedy, timing is everything and thanks to him, I got that right in my reaction shots. Going by how the crew members were laughing themselves silly, I can say that we got a winner in our hands.”
She had also auditioned for Detective Byomkesh Bakshi. She reveals she would have loved to play the role, given her Bengali roots. “Swastika Mukherjee, who got the role, is at least 10 years older to me. She was already a star when I was in school. I remember going to a coffee shop once with my friends and gawking at her there. I auditioned for both the roles the same day and was picked up for Patel. I would have loved if both had come my way.”
She was a major foodie before she became a star but now has to moderate her cravings. She cross trains to remain fit and her regimen also includes a 10-kilometre run three times a week. She aslo swims most days. “It’s hard being a star. I have a good metabolism, thanks to my parents but still have to work out to look good on screen. Then, you’re expected to go to skin spas, nail spas, hair spas… the works. Earlier, I believed that celebs would be just lazing around. But now I realise the hard work that goes to maintain that carefree look.”
She says she’s shopaholic and splurges all her money on clothes. “I’m not someone who can shop online. I need the whole shopping experience. I need to touch and feel and wear the dress. I need to accessorise and colour co-ordinate the ensemble. Thankfully, high end malls have now opened up in Kolkata too, so I can indulge in my passion to my heart’s content there.”
Like all Bengalis, Payal too grew up on a diet of Rabindra Sangeet and Uttam Kumar-Suchitra Sen films. She can sing and considers Suchitra Sen as her ideal. “Suchitra and Madhuri Dixit are my favourites. I consider them to be epitomes of womanly grace and beauty.” She reminisces about the black and white romances and says they don’t make films like those any more. “Take any Uttam-Suchitra film. They never even touched each other but the romance was palpable. Today, a couple indulges in so much intimacy on screen but the magic has gone.” Shah Rukh Khan and Ranbir Kapoor are her favourite male stars. “DDLJ is an eternal favourite. I must have seen it at least a 100 times. I never miss it whenever it comes on TV. No one can romance like Shah Rukh. I’d love to act with him in a romance. Ranbir too has a certain intensity, which is appealing.”
Her next Hindi film is a period project called Freedom, a socio-political thriller set in the ’70s, directed by Vivek Agnihotri. She adds that making it in Hindi films doesn’t mean saying no to South films. “I want to shine in both Bollywood and South films. Today, you can juggle a career in both industries.”
Catch her interview in the latest issue of Filmfare
Right from when she was in school in Kolkata, Payal Ghosh had her set of admirers. Some even lounged around her building, waiting to catch a glimpse of the pretty girl. Her cousins teased her about it, saying that she should be in films as she already had a flock of diehard fans. Being an actor was furthest in her mind then. But she admits that the germ of that idea been planted back then. “I grew up in a protective cocoon. I belong to a large family and was pampered by all. They were pretty conservative so there was no question of me joining films. Sometimes, the boys hanging around needed to be chased away and we laughed about it.”
Cut to 2009, when her first Telugu film, Prayanam, was released in Hyderabad. She was all of 17 and like any other teenager, had gone to a mall for some retail therapy unaware of her newfound stardom. Suddenly, she found people staring at her and pointing towards her. Some even came forward for an autograph. Soon, a huge crowd gathered and she had to be hastily escorted out of the mall. “My mind went back to those days when my cousins teased me about becoming a star. I realised I had suddenly become one. It was a rush like never before. I had done the film for a lark but I realised that I could not return to my normal life now.”
She recounts how she bagged the film. Incidentally, South director Chandra Sekhar Yeleti was auditioning for his next film. She had accompanied her friend for it. She was also cajoled to give the audition. Yeleti wanted a fresh-faced teenager for the role and immediately liked her. Payal didn’t know anything about South cinema and had to be given all sorts of assurances before she said yes.“I feared that my father wouldn’t agree. I also thought that since it’s a South film, no one in Kolkata would know anything about it. So why not do it for the experience. I found out that the director was a National Award winner. And my co-star, Manoj Manchu, was Lakshmi Manchu’s brother and came from a well-connected family. So I said yes and embarked on the journey of my life.”
Pranayam proved to be a big hit and she went on to do more films down South, not only in Telugu but in Tamil and even Kannada. She hasn’t done a Malayalam film yet but is waiting for the right offer. She thanks the dubbing technology for helping her survive down South. “I don’t know the languages at all, just some rudimentary phrases. But as we don’t work in a sync environment and dub it all later, it becomes easier. My dialogue is written in English. There are people who teach me the right modulation. You accomplish it through trial and error.” With time, she has come to like the South cuisine as well. “Initially, I craved for home-cooked food. It was hard to source authentic Bengali food in South locations and the sensible course was to adjust one’s palate to the local fare. Now, I can have sambar anytime and with anything,” she giggles.
It was Bharat Patel, the producer of her hit film Ooseravelli, who helped her find a foothold in Hindi films. “Bharatji is a big distributor of Hindi films in Gujarat. He came to know that director Sanjay Chell wanted a new face for his upcoming comedy Patel Ki Punjabi Shaadi and suggested my name. I auditioned for the part and got selected.”
She’s thankful for the role as it helped her gain proximity with the likes of Rishi Kapoor and Paresh Rawal, two actors she had grown up watching and had always admired. Paresh plays her father in the film and became a mentor of sorts on the set. “Pareshji makes it all look so effortless,” she gushes. “I had to adopt Gujarati nuances for my role. I couldn’t have wished for a better person than him to teach me all those subtleties.” Rishi Kapoor, who plays her romantic lead, Vir Das’s, father in the film, brought in his bag of tricks too. “He’s suave and has this characteristic swagger. You look at him and you know you’re looking at a star. But when the camera comes on, all that goes away and he becomes his character. The transformation is amazing.”
All her films earlier were intense romances. Payal hasn’t done a romcom before and it helped having stand-up comic as Vir Das as her co-star. “Vir is an accomplished actor. He knows how to get under the skin of his character. And being a stage comedian, he knows how to read the atmosphere and change accordingly. In a comedy, timing is everything and thanks to him, I got that right in my reaction shots. Going by how the crew members were laughing themselves silly, I can say that we got a winner in our hands.”
She had also auditioned for Detective Byomkesh Bakshi. She reveals she would have loved to play the role, given her Bengali roots. “Swastika Mukherjee, who got the role, is at least 10 years older to me. She was already a star when I was in school. I remember going to a coffee shop once with my friends and gawking at her there. I auditioned for both the roles the same day and was picked up for Patel. I would have loved if both had come my way.”
She was a major foodie before she became a star but now has to moderate her cravings. She cross trains to remain fit and her regimen also includes a 10-kilometre run three times a week. She aslo swims most days. “It’s hard being a star. I have a good metabolism, thanks to my parents but still have to work out to look good on screen. Then, you’re expected to go to skin spas, nail spas, hair spas… the works. Earlier, I believed that celebs would be just lazing around. But now I realise the hard work that goes to maintain that carefree look.”
She says she’s shopaholic and splurges all her money on clothes. “I’m not someone who can shop online. I need the whole shopping experience. I need to touch and feel and wear the dress. I need to accessorise and colour co-ordinate the ensemble. Thankfully, high end malls have now opened up in Kolkata too, so I can indulge in my passion to my heart’s content there.”
Like all Bengalis, Payal too grew up on a diet of Rabindra Sangeet and Uttam Kumar-Suchitra Sen films. She can sing and considers Suchitra Sen as her ideal. “Suchitra and Madhuri Dixit are my favourites. I consider them to be epitomes of womanly grace and beauty.” She reminisces about the black and white romances and says they don’t make films like those any more. “Take any Uttam-Suchitra film. They never even touched each other but the romance was palpable. Today, a couple indulges in so much intimacy on screen but the magic has gone.” Shah Rukh Khan and Ranbir Kapoor are her favourite male stars. “DDLJ is an eternal favourite. I must have seen it at least a 100 times. I never miss it whenever it comes on TV. No one can romance like Shah Rukh. I’d love to act with him in a romance. Ranbir too has a certain intensity, which is appealing.”
Her next Hindi film is a period project called Freedom, a socio-political thriller set in the ’70s, directed by Vivek Agnihotri. She adds that making it in Hindi films doesn’t mean saying no to South films. “I want to shine in both Bollywood and South films. Today, you can juggle a career in both industries.”
Catch her interview in the latest issue of Filmfare
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