Mumbai, Feb 16 (PTI) Shalini Pandey says through her character of Mariam, a small town girl with big dreams in “Bandwaale”, she relived the moments when people around her thought she was crazy to dream about becoming a heroine.
In the new Prime Video series, Pandey plays a poetess who fights familial resistance to follow her dreams. The “Arjun Reddy” and “Maharaj” star said her confrontation scene with her father in the show had echoes of the conversation she had with her own parents at the beginning of her career.
“I take a lot of pride in this show, and playing Mariam, because I hope a lot of girls who are watching this, and watch it in small towns, realise that it’s not that difficult. “Because when I was growing up, and I voiced out for the first time that I wanted to be an actor, it was a big deal. People thought I was crazy. People thought, ‘How is this possible?’ They were like, ‘You want to be a heroine?’ And I was like ‘Yeah, I want to be a heroine’. It was somehow such a hard pill to swallow,” Pandey told PTI in an interview.
The Jamshedpur-born actor, 32, said it was cathartic to play the character as she lived through those layers again.
“What happens is, when you relive that, you also understand the other perspectives, your father’s perspective, your mom’s, your sister’s. And that also helped me a lot to have a good equation with my dad. So, it kind of helped me,” she added.
Asked about her equation with her father now that she has been an independent actor for almost eight years now, Pandey said she hopes he is proud of her now.
“He’s chill. I earn my own money. I have my own lifestyle here. I hope he’s very proud of me. He does not show it because we both, my dad and I, don’t express our feelings to each other. But I think he’s kind of proud of me,” she added.
Created and written by Ankur Tewari and Swanand Kirkire, and directed by Akshat Verma and Ankur Tewari, the Prime Original series is produced by OML Entertainment.
The series, directed by Tewari and Akshat Verma, also stars Kirkire, Ashish Vidyarthi, Anupama Kumar, and Sanjana Dipu. It features original compositions by Yashraj Mukhate, marking his first foray into composing music for a long-format series. PTI SSG BK BK BK
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