New Delhi: Content creator-turned-actor Dharna Durga has ranked fifth on IMDb’s Popular Indian Celebrities of the week after the release of Netflix’s ‘Maa Behen’, placing ahead of co-stars Madhuri Dixit and Triptii Dimrii.
Dimri was ranked 13th on the list, while Dixit was placed 15th. Durga is also ahead of Shah Rukh Khan (7th), Ranveer Singh (8th), Vijay (10th), Salman Khan (11th), and Ram Charan (18th).
IMDb’s Popular Indian Celebrities list is a weekly feature that tracks Indian actors and filmmakers drawing user interest on the platform.
‘Maa Behen’, directed by Suresh Triveni, premiered on Netflix on 4 June. The film stars Dixit, Dimri and Durga as Rekha, Jaya and Sushma, a mother-daughter trio whose lives spiral after a dead body turns up in their kitchen. Ravi Kishan, Arunoday Singh, Geetanjali Kulkarni and Shardul Bhardwaj form the rest of the main cast.
Durga plays Sushma, one of Rekha’s daughters. In the film, the character is a wannabe influencer, making the casting close to Durga’s own public image. Before ‘Maa Behen’, she was best known for her short-form comedy sketches on Instagram, where she has built a following of 1.8 million. She began posting videos during the Covid-19 pandemic, with reels such as ‘Every Dance Teacher Ever’ becoming popular online.
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Dharna Durga’s life
Durga began making videos while studying at Delhi University. In a 2023 Hindustan Times interview, she said she had been confused about joining a dance group or the theatre society before choosing theatre.
“I realised that while I enjoy dancing, I love acting even more,” she had said. Her sketches have often drawn on everyday characters, from relatives and beauty parlour aunties to shop staff and bus conductors. In the same interview, she said, “Everywhere I look, I see characters.”
Her casting had already become part of the conversation around ‘Maa Behen’ before the film’s release. During promotions, a paparazzi video showed Durga moving aside while photographers called for solo pictures of Dixit and Dimri. The clip led to an online discussion about whether creators face added scrutiny when they move into films.
Triveni had also defended the casting of creators in an NDTV interview, saying the word ‘influencer’ was a marketing term and that creators who perform characters online are already actors in their own space. He also pushed back against the idea that Durga had been cast only because of her following.
Durga has also spoken about the move from social media to acting. In a recent interview with The Times of India, she pushed back against the idea that her role in ‘Maa Behen’ came only because of her online following, saying she had gone through an audition process for the part.
(Edited by Saptak Datta)