Un-Ananya!

Please donrsquot judge for what the algorithm throws on my Instagram but I have seen videos of paparazzi calling for Ananya Pandayrsquos attention yelling ldquoACP ACP ACPhelliprdquoWTF is ACP we naturally ask Ananya who goes ldquoFull props to paps for creativityrdquoShe was once stepping out of the Mumbai Policersquos annual gala named Umang where it occurred to photographers posted outside to call her ACP as in Assistant Commissioner of PoliceA still from CTRLThe name stuck Sometimes they call her Bae Meaning the Prime Video series Call Me Bae that she headlined in 2024ldquoBut there they go abey abey ehrdquo Ananya says Sounds crass She doesnrsquot like that so much She likes ACP As in which is what I first thought lsquoAnanya Chunky Pandayrsquo since itrsquos a common practice to use fatherrsquos name as middle nameChunky as in the Bollywood star from the rsquo80s He has a brother called Chikki who I had the privilege of knowing at some pointmdasha businessman I realised who was the goto guy for many in Bollywood if they ever got into trouble with the government or wanted some issue or the other fixed prontomdashwith customs police excise etcChunky Chikki these are kinda weird names too noAnanya laughs ldquoMy father is Suyash Chikki chachu is actually Alok They keep telling me stories of how they got their pet names but I donrsquot believe themldquoMy dad says he was very chunky when he was born Which is not true He was a stick figure Chachu says he loved eating chikkirdquo But then you donrsquot start out eating chikki as an infant when you get named anywayAnanya Panday Adarsh Gourav and Siddhant Chaturvedi in Kho Gaye Hum Kahan 2023Chunky calls Ananya Wazi ldquoItrsquos strange He calls my mom and my sister and now our dog Wazi too I think he fears that hersquoll forget our namesrdquoSticking to Insta reels still the one with Ananya that went the most viral actually had to do with her coactor from Gehraiyaan 2022 Kho Gaye Hum Kahan 2023 Siddhant Chaturvedi over a roundtable conversation with young actors discussing nepotism in the film industryAnanya was roughly making a point about how nepotism may be too blanket a term Which is when Siddhant chimed in with the nowfamous line ldquoWhen their struggles begin is when our dreams get realisedrdquo With a foot in the door of the film industry after allldquoI think Siddhant had just written that line in a hidden notebook and was simply waiting to blurt it outrdquo Ananya laughsTo add ldquoI can joke about this because he is one of my closest friends in the industry This insideroutsider is such a dividing line anywayldquoWhat I was trying to say is everybody has a different story You have to eventually resonate with audiences And many people with film backgrounds donrsquot several from outside dordquoTo think of it while her father Chunky was indeed a starmdashhis stardom years would probably hover between the mid80s to early rsquo90smdashldquofilms like Vishwatma Aankhen TezaabhelliprdquoAnanya knew of them but ever since she was born in 1998 ldquohe had moved on to negative parts and lsquocharacteractorrsquo rolesrdquoBack in the day we also used to hear about Chunky being a superstar in Bangladesh Not that Irsquove seen any of Chunkyrsquos Bangladeshi films fair then to wonder if itrsquos even trueAnanya says ldquoI have met his fans from Bangladesh Itrsquos definitely truerdquoWe actually got to Ananyarsquos namebusiness in the conversation because of Saif Ali Khanrsquos daughter Sara who went to Dhirubhai Ambani International School with Ananya But would choose to never call her by her name Shersquod just say ldquoAyerdquo As in not the first letter of Ananya Just ldquoAyerdquo for anonymousFrom Ananyarsquos account Sara comes across as quite the vicious senior If Ananya saw Sara coming down the steps in school shersquod just take the other staircase ldquoShe was so lsquomufatrsquo loudmouth I was always scared of what shersquoll say to merdquoThey did a play together where Sara was the lead and Ananya would hold the umbrella for herAnanya Panday with Siddhant Chaturvedi in GehraiyaanThey of course get along famously now Sara had just texted Ananya for her stellar performance in Vikramaditya Motwanersquos CTRL 2024 before we began this episode of Sit with Hitlist wondering how much older Ananya was from Sara since shersquos the youngest to feature in this series with Sara before herldquoShersquoll kill me if I told you how old is Sarardquo Ananya smiles But when yoursquore in school together you will know if yoursquore in Class V Well Sara was in Class VIII thenmdashdebuting in films in 2018 with Kedarnath The same year Janhvi Kapoor debuted with DhadakTogether the three could form the top female trio of GenZ leads in Bollywood currently To give you a sense of the passage of time when Sit with Hitlist started in 2017 with Aamir Khan none of them were professional actorsAnanya belongs to Bollywoodrsquos class of 2019 starting with Student of the Year SOTY 2mdashKaran Joharrsquos teenybopper franchise aimed at introducing fresh faces in mainstream Hindi filmsAnanya claims her jaw dropped when she first saw Alia Bhatt similarly enter the screen with SOTY Thatrsquos her inspiration Ever since she can remember Ananya maintains shersquod always wanted to be a Bollywood heroineldquoMy dad had a handycam with a rotating screenmdasha selfie before the selfie I was obsessed with performing lines and songs before it Even at birthday parties nobody had to askmdashI would just dance for everyonerdquoWith director Shakun Batra PicYogen ShahFor further proof of the Bollywood bug Ananya informs she has three things stuck on the wall of her vanity van ldquoA picture of Lolo Karisma Kapoor A picture of Salman Khan And Kareena Kapoorrsquos line from Jab We Met Mein apni favourite hoonrdquoThatrsquos what she admiringly gazes at every day before stepping out that vandoor to shoot Which kinda also explains the early moves in her career besides SOTY 2 of courseItrsquos the sort of work that should ideally fetch you a poster in the backseat of an autorickshawmdashthe old barometer for a heroinersquos success in fanculture ldquoOh it hasnrsquot happened to me yet Please do send me if you find one ie a pic of hers on either side of an autorickshaw seatrdquoJust putting it out there if you do find one With her subsequent films hence Ananya went fullon smalltown For instance as the hot distraction for a married man in Pati Patni Aur Woh a rustic remake of the Sanjeev Kumar classic that was a decent hit with Kartik AaryanLikewise she was off to MathuraAgra in Dream Girl 2 Not that realism was the filmrsquos strong suit it was still a world quite far removed for a BandrabredAnanya says ldquoIrsquom a directorrsquos actor In the sense of absorbing instructions or their insights into smalltown That apart just walking around shopping for mithai being on the boat in Mathura for a live location gives you a feel of the world pretty quicklyrdquoShe couldrsquove carried on the same waymdashmade it in life though maybe not with glowing reviews Critical acclaim doesnrsquot equal crores anywayOnly a certain ldquoswitchrdquo happened in her career wherein you can seamlessly observe an Ananya whorsquos so unAnanyamdashgoing deeper into roles with effortlessly subtle characterdriven cinema reflecting zeitgeist or spirit of the timesWhat was that switch Ananya describes it quite precisely ldquoDirector Shakun Batra He taught me to develop my process as an actor with Gehraiyaan We did workshops together with Siddhant Deepika PadukoneldquoEven though I wasnrsquot playing the central part I got to build a backstory for a character that wonrsquot even be seen on the screen I inculcated all of that into my own training for all my films thereafterrdquoShe clearly remembers going up to meet Shakun Ek Main Aur Ekk Tu Kapoor amp Sons first ldquoAs you know Irsquom a complete Hindi film person I was really nervous I thought he would be some hifi intellectual So I watched two Polish movies to talk to himhelliprdquoWhich two Polish films ldquoNow I canrsquot remember their namesrdquo Ananya says Going back to Insta reels shersquos convinced this bit of the conversation will start getting shared online The same way she got trolled when she once admitted she hadnrsquot watched The GodfatherAs with Indian cinema and Satyajit Ray among film buffs globally Polish cinema gets most instantly associated with director Krzysztof KielowskiI wonder if shersquod seen one of Kielowskirsquos films I bring up later in the chat ldquoYes Kielowskirsquos Red was one of the films Irsquod seenrdquoSo if the first clip from the video of this conversation does get passed around for trolling purposes only fair that this second part is added to it too Just saying That said Ananya sighs in relief ldquoShakun turned out to be so chill Hersquos from Delhi My boy basicallyrdquoItrsquos not like Ananya hadnrsquot been through a workshop process with her debut under Dharma Productions But that was differentldquoI was 18 That workshop was mainly to open me up to the cameramdashlearn to tell the wideshot from closeup Tiger Shroff costar in SOTY 2 would literally move me around to take my mark catch the light I had no ideardquoShe adds ldquoContrary to popular perception that I grew up in the film industrymdashmy dad took me to a set only oncerdquo That was some picture Ananya recalls titled ldquoFresh Lime or somethingrdquo which never got releasedmdasha common phenomenon couple of decades agoGehraiyaan for instance was possibly the first Indian film to engage an lsquointimacy coordinatorrsquo on the set to execute lovemaking scenes ldquoItrsquos a must for every set Itrsquos about consent But beyond that I was too conscious as an actor too selfawaremdashdiligent teacherrsquos pet doing as toldldquoWhich is what Irsquod be with Punit Malhotra director of SOTY 2 But I may not find that with every director Shakun told me So I had to develop a voice of my ownmdashdo a selfinterpreted lsquotake for the loversquo which might make it to the movierdquoThis making of UnAnanya involved ldquoworkshops with acting instructor Atul Mongia who makes you go deep into inner emotions voicecoaching with a training institute called Strictly Speaking breathing exerciseshelliprdquoThere is training on ldquophysicality and movementsrdquo that shersquos undergoing right currently for a 1920s period project shersquos working onmdashthat ldquoshersquos dying to talk aboutrdquo but has been forbidden from Fair enoughThe filmography that followed Gehraiyaan speaks for itself Okay there was that ludicrous Liger that happened after too Seriously what the hell was that Letrsquos not talk about it ldquoYou donrsquot have to itrsquos finerdquo Ananya muttersWe move on to Kho Gaye Hum Kahan KGHK CTRL pronounced Control Call Me Bae CMB The latter is a fully frivolousfluffy series about a ditsy damsel going through two lives offline and on the Internet ldquoIrsquom even shocked that yoursquove seen itrdquo Ananya qualifiesTrue I may not the TG target group but there is a flip that occurs somewhere towards the end of third episode of CMB with commentary on TV news media which is a spoof of itself that gives the show proper legs to stand on thence Apart from the accepted genre of courseAnanya agrees ldquoItrsquos the kinda content Irsquod wanna watch as an audience Whether or not Irsquom in it Thatrsquos what I look at in a script now For all the fluff Call Me Bae had something to sayldquoAnd itrsquos aligned with my beliefs very strongly Sometimes as an actor yoursquore told not to speak up so much Or to not get political But when you can do that with your work itrsquos so beautiful You also reach a much wider audiencerdquoBesides fine music great performancesmdashparticularly Ananyarsquos so viscerally easygoing and easy on the eyemdashwhatrsquos common to KGHK CMB and CTRLThat she goes through heartbreak each time ldquoThatrsquos my signature Salman Khan takes his shirt off onscreen I get cheated on I donrsquot want itrdquo Ananya laughsJokes apart what else is common between KGHK CMB and CTRL GenZ and its relationship with technology Or social media to be more precise that totally drives the mediascape if not the world circa 2024Ananya reasons ldquoI know people are seeing them as a trilogy of technology movies That wasnrsquot the plan But being a GenZ these topics are attractive to me to talk aboutmdashand that no one in cinema is doing it Itrsquos been underrepresentedmdashtechnology is the third part of everyonersquos livesrdquoWho else to frame such films but a GenZ herself Making Ananya also the right person at the right place time and age 25 taking the newturn on the Bollywood frontFor a film like CTRL for instance where shersquos in every single scenemdashas a young techsavvy YouTuber switching between devicesscreensmdashAnanya herself would be as much a muse as the maal research for the movie noAt an experiential level she certainly knows more about the world being surveyed than the writerdirector Vikramaditya Motwane himself She agrees Which is why she was brought onboard the writing process as wellldquoThere was a writersrsquo retreat in Goa with Vikram screenwriter Avinash Sampat Sumukhi Suresh the dialogue writer And I was called over to sit in on the discussions Thatrsquos when Irsquod make suggestions too Such as the fact that the leadrsquos name should be Nalini and that shersquos trying to fit in and be cool by calling herself Nella insteadrdquoJust as Bae is actually Bella in CMB ldquoIn hindsight now they sound similar It didnrsquot feel like that when I was shooting them thoughrdquo Ananya smiles CTRL was shot over 16 days with work on edit for screenlife genre that took 16 monthsAnanya says ldquoThe shoot itself had no green screens The way you saw you it is the way we filmed it In the sense of me holding two phones one as prop and the other as camera I got to design the AI emoji I talk to in the film too Which is not the version in the final filmrdquoFor inspiration for her three top films latelymdashwhere Ananya plays a social media fiendinfluencermdashshersquod have to look no further than her own familyHer first cousin Alanna Panday Chikkirsquos daughter whomdashmuch like Bae and her bae in CMBmdashpublicly channels her complete married life with her partner Ivor through their YouTube channel 14 million subscribers and on Instagram 2 millionplus followersAlanna and Ivor recently got themselves a multipart reality series The Tribe that dropped on Prime Video Albeit more as a Bollywood star rather than a contentcreator type Ananya herself metaphorically leads 25 million followers on InstagramI wonder what she makes of the influencer culture herself while very much a part of it in a senseShe says ldquoI see it with Alanna and her husband They put out every part of their lives Yoursquore never present in the moment Itrsquos hard work And then you see what works online So maybe yoursquore not into PDA public display of affection but therersquos traction so you do it As actors we donrsquot have to be so publicrdquoAnanyarsquos a phone addict nonetheless Like so many of us Her mother Bhavana though she says is more cued in to social media Bhavana of course became quite the reality TV star through the Netflix series Fabulous Lives of Bollywood WivesBy the way thatrsquos where I first saw this thing called the Paris Debutantsrsquo Ball with Maheep and Sanjay Kapoorrsquos daughter Shanaya on the ballroom floor among supposed global elites Sorry to sound terribly middleclass but WTF is a debutantsrsquo ballmdasha Jane Austenian matchmaking soireeI ask this to Ananya because she debuted on the social scene similarly in Paris with the same event that lists Vanity Fair as its title sponsor Vanity Fair organises thisldquoIrsquom actually not good with these things detailsmdashit gets covered in Vanity Fair yes Honestly when my mom first got this invite over mail she thought it was a prankldquoWhat I really liked about it is that well I didnrsquot study abroad I see that with my sister Rysa who goes to Tisch School of the Arts in New York and gets to interact with people from all parts of the world I got to do that at the ball Then itrsquos also the first time we went through camera hair makeupmdashit was a training of sortsrdquoWhat is it though ldquoI was 17 As were everyone elsemdashReese Witherspoonrsquos daughter Ava comedian Steve Harveyrsquos daughter Lori the guy with me was the prince of Sweden that I found out laterhellip They pick 20 girls from across the world We are all in touchrdquoIrsquom guessing a networking event for the young then and their folks perhapsItrsquos easy to tell how Ananya wouldrsquove easily fit in though Therersquos a natural galpal quality about her Not that Irsquom friends with too many her agemdashbut you can tellAlso as she fills you in on her family friends or BFFs as it were Shanaya Navya Naveli Amitabh Bachchanrsquos granddaughter Suhana Shah Rukh Khanrsquos daughterTheir WhatsApp group is called Charliersquos Angels Therersquos another one Ananyarsquos Fans ldquoNamed by me of courserdquo she saysHer fans online incidentally are called lsquoAnanyansrsquo She provides them a fair peek into her life through paps and posts online This is stuff that makes showbiz showbiz anywayOutside of that I think therersquos a relatable side to Ananya as a pure conversationalist She might look a bit of an insouciant spacecadet Which was my impression of hermdashchanged totally by the fact of how she chats so unaffectedly To the point that when our hourlong timersquos up she goes ldquoWhat Itrsquos over Werenrsquot you gonna ask me about OrryrdquoDid tell her that I would Because we saw a coaster lying in the coffeetable of the studio that said lsquoOrlyrsquomdashshortened form of lsquoOh reallyrdquo We misread that as Orry before the chat beganSo since she asked for itmdashmay as well educate readers on the existentialist query ldquoWho the hell is Orryrdquo We mean the social media influencer whorsquos only papped with moviestars except nobody knows what he does for a livingAnanya and Orry are evidently friends And I donrsquot mean the question in terms of the phenomenon itselfmdashof people famous for being famous Instagram is simply the new Page 3 But no we must knowmdashwho is OrryAnanya says ldquoIrsquove known him 10 yearsrdquo Where did she meet him ldquoAt a nightclub called Tryst in Lower Parel Hersquod come with common friendsrdquoWho was this common friend ldquoCanrsquot remember I think Shanaya But hersquos been friends with all of usmdashmuch before we became actors He went to college in LA with Janhvi He was in the same year if not the same class with Sara in schoolrdquoSara went to Dhirubhai Ananya tells me ldquoHersquos a South Bombay boy who went to Cathedral Schoolrdquo And then she adds ldquoIrsquove known Orry for a decade but I still donrsquot know what his family looks likeldquoWhatever hersquos doing is working for him I could make a fiveminute documentary on Orry and you still wonrsquot know who he is Hersquoll always be a mysteryrdquo Okay then Or well whatever