“Shakun Batra taught me that a film is not only about what is written on paper”, says Ananya Panday

Ananya Panday can’t wait to know how the audience responds to her performance in Gehraiyaan. The actress plays Tia, a young woman deceived by her fiance, played by Siddhant Chaturvedi. The movie, helmed by Shakun Batra, additionally features Deepika Padukone and Dhairya Karwa. Ananya, in an interview with BT, had mentioned that working in the film was cathartic process.

When asked how she connected herself into the part, Ananya says, “We actually did a lot of readings, acting and intimacy workshops and mostly we did everything together. All of us would discuss a lot of things – even things that were not on paper. So, we used to come up with stuff that was possibly happening between the scenes, the characters’ backstories, and more. What you see in Gehraiyaan is just these characters in a specific time of their lives. They have surely lived a longer life where they have known each other deeply. We were solidifying those things, working on each character’s interpersonal relationships with the others. The first few days of work on the film involved the intimacy workshops that helped us bond with each other in a really good way. Since most of the characters have known each other for their entire lifespans, our chemistry and warmth for one another had to appear natural. Most actors will tell you that they need the first few days of shooting to get into the world of the movie, and so on. I also had this really challenging scene that was scheduled for the last leg of the schedule. I thought I might have the requisite time to prepare myself for it but it so happened that we had to knock it off in the first few days. That didn’t leave me much time to prepare, to think how I wanted to enact that portion. But that also stopped me from overpreparing and overthinking what I wanted to do in it. I am actually happy about the way it turned out. It was pretty natural. There were happy mistakes that really helped me cement who and what Tia is all about.”

As an artiste, Ananya has been very vocal with regards to her appreciation for Shakun Batra and how much she learned from him. When asked to detail what she gained from him, the actress, recently seen in movies like Student of the Year 2 and Pati Patni Aur Woh, says, “The more I talk about it, the more I realise that throughout our conversations, he was trying to instill so many things in us, which we didn’t figure out at the moment. He loves talking and within a conversation, he brings in our characters. He will help you think of an idea to crack a scene and he will make you feel like you came up with that thought when it’s actually his. He also gives a lot of space to his actors. On a set, you would not see him till after the take is done. He taught me that a film is not only about what is written on paper. Stage directions can say things but if you as the character don’t agree with it, you can relay the same emotion your way without forcing it on the character. He and Ayesha Devitre were not tied down to what was written in the screenplay. Ayesha and he would allow us to move around and sometimes, even figure out.