In an exclusive conversation, Saiyami shared her experience of working with Ashwiny Iyer Tiwary, and why every female actor should work with her.
Ashwiny Iyer Tiwary's romantic-drama series Faadu released with rave reviews, and the performances of the leading trio, Pavail Gulati, Saiyami Kher, and Abhilash Thapliyal are winning hearts. Kher, who played the role of a simple, headstrong, rooted girl Manjiri, joined DNA India, and she opened up about collaborating with Tiwary.
Saiyami always wanted to work under the direction of Ashwiny. "I have always been a fan of Ashwiny ma’am because I saw Nil Battey Sannata and Bareilly Ki Barfi, and I was moved to the extent that even though I didn’t know Ashwiny ma’am, I related to her. Just like Ratna Pathak Shah, I started teaching English to my househelp. I even explained to her how to open a bank account and not remain dependent on her husband, so that is how much her work has moved me."
Saiyami continued to say, “I believe any Female actor would want to work with Ashwiny ma’am because she has a lot of strong female characters that she portrays in her work. So she was always on my wishlist. She is somebody who is so calm on the sets in all the chaos and someone who is very collaborative that it is fun to work with her. She is very homely to work with."
Saiyami kick-started her Bollywood journey with Harshvardhan Kapoor in Rakesh Omprakash Mehra's romantic saga Mirziya (2016). The film was rejected at the box office, and Saiyami stated that the film deserved better. "First movie is always special, Though it found its audience, I do wish that the movie had done better commercially, as the film deserved better. I feel it was one of the finest albums by Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy and the music didn’t get its justice. But now, there is only so much we can do.”
Saiyami hails from a filmy background. She is the granddaughter of famous veteran actor Usha Kiran and niece of Tanvi Azmi. Calling OTT a boom to a performer like her, Kher added, "At times it happens that while we make a movie we tend to edit some scenes, remove characters or cut short a scene because there is always a time-bound of 2 hours that creates pressure but when you write a long format, the writing is detailed because you put a definition to the characters because there is no time-limit." Kher further emphasised how the digital space, and added, "It has opened up so many doors and avenues for actors like me. We see big superstars do some shows on OTT because they think even they want to explore it but I feel that people are not afraid to take risks anymore as there are different genres and the writing has also become very brave and this has opened great opportunities for actors, writers and technicians, directors everyone because there is exciting work happening."
READ: Faadu review: Pavail Gulati, Saiyami Kher starrer Ashwiny Iyer Tiwari's directorial series hits straight into the heart
Saiyami started her film career with the Telugu film Rey. After Mirziya, Saiyami continued exploring opportunities in regional industries, and she even did Marathi film Mauli with Riteish Deshmukh. Sharing her two cents on this year's North vs South debate, Saiyami added, "The war between South and Hindi wasn’t a fair war. There are films like KGF (Chapter 2) and RRR that did work well, but at the same time there were films in that industry, that didn’t work, and which we don’t have any clue about it." Kher continued, "We don’t follow that cinema maybe, but the truth is that the successful films are talked about and the unsuccessful ones are not. So the ratio of unsuccessful Hindi films was larger, but thankfully now Drishyam 2 is doing very well, Bhediya is also doing great, so let’s hope this dry spell has ended.”
On the work front, Saiyami will next be seen in R Balki's Ghoomar with Abhishek Bachchan. Kher also has completed another film directed by Rahul Dholakia which had Pratik Gandhi and Dvendu as her co-stars. She further added that she will also be a part of a project produced by Anurag Kashyap and concluded by saying, “Hopefully will start something new in January and February”.
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