Debutant Shreya Narayan wants to keep soaring higher

It’s been a few years of struggle for debutant Shreya Narayan, but the start has been on a positive note. Playing saheb’s mistress Mahua in Tigmanshu Dhulia’s Saheb, Biwi Aur Gangster has not just been a challenge to herself as a person, but also to her acting skills. And Shreya, who is also the great grand niece of Dr Rajendra Prasad, the first President of India, is overwhelmed with the response.

“I’m exhilarated — none of us ever imagined the film would be welcomed this way. And all credit goes to Tigmanshu for writing a script and directing a film that allowed no character to go unnoticed,’ she informs. Shreya’s role of a mistress was a blend of sensuality and emotions. “There wasn’t anything sleazy — on the contrary, Mahua and the saheb were in love with each other. The biwi and the gangster gang up against her because the saheb’s family has a history of falling prey to the whims of the mistress. What the saheb doesn’t get from his biwi, he gets from Mahua, especially when it comes to love and companionship, yet the two have a constant power battle on,” she says.

Shreya was a last minute addition to the cast of Saheb… and hardly had any time to break the ice with the saheb, Jimmy Shergill. “We were shooting in a small hamlet in Gujarat and my only interaction with Jimmy had been a ‘Hi’ and “Bye’. Our scenes together had a lot of suggestive intimacy and here’s where our acting skills needed to be utlised the most,” she recollects, adding, “Our first scene together had me crying. To get into the mood, I started crying for an hour before and kept crying even after the scene was shot. Jimmy was a little unnerved with all my tears but ironically, that’s when we broke the ice.”

Like a lot of novices, Shreya had earlier starred in the Telugu film Srivari Muchatlu. “An audition landed me the role but I soon realised that I needed to attain a certain position in Bollywood to do regional films. As a fresher, it’s hard to have creative control and I didn’t want to compromise on sensibilities,’ she signs off.