Actress Shalini Pandey recently revealed that when she expressed her desire to become an actor while growing up, it was unbelievable for everyone around her.
In her new Prime Video series Bandwaale, the Arjun Reddy star plays a poetess who fights familial resistance to follow her dreams. She said that through her character of Mariam in the show, she relived the moments when people around her thought she was “crazy” to dream of being an actor.
“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 actress 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.
The 32-year-old actress said it was cathartic to play the character as she lived through those experiences 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.
When asked about her relationship with her father now that she has made it as an independent actor for almost eight years, Shalini said, “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.”
Created and written by Ankur Tewari and Swanand Kirkire, the Prime Video series is directed by Akshat Verma and Ankur Tewari. It is produced by OML Entertainment.
The series also stars Kirkire, Ashish Vidyarthi, Anupama Kumar, and Sanjana Dipu. Yashraj Mukhate has worked on the soundtrack.
