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Call Me Bae star Ananya Panday wants people to 'revisit' her work
Updated On: 04 September, 2024 09:06 AM IST | Mumbai | Mohar Basu
Critiqued for playing mainly urban characters, Ananya says heartland stories aren’t the only ticket to mass appeal as she explores comedy with Call Me Bae
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Ananya Panday
Why is there no Indian alternative to Emily in Paris? Or maybe there is, in Ananya Panday’s Call Me Bae. The upcoming comedy tells the story of a rich heiress, Bae, who suddenly finds herself without her fortune and privilege. Tell Panday that her maiden web series’ premise reminds one of Legally Blonde (2001), 2 Broke Girls and Schitt’s Creek, and she says it has a bit of all of them. “We need comfort shows and films. Happiness is highly underrated after a long day. You don’t always want to finish your day with something intense; sometimes, you want to be soothed. This show also helped me explore my comic timing. I loved this script. I read all eight episodes in one night,” she says.
To build her character—whom she describes as “positive, kind and uber rich”—for the Collin D’Cunha-directed series, Panday relied on the script, and some of her favourite feel-good movies. She, however, quickly adds, “But when I was acting, I avoided all of my favourites. Bae is culturally contextualised. I went into her relationships and her backstory. Karan [Johar, producer] is right, Bae could easily be a mini Poo.” What was most important to the actor was to humanise the character. “Bae is a product of a great writers’ room. Plus, women telling women’s stories really benefits this. Women characters feel so well-rounded. There is a scene where she is talking to her bag. It seems ridiculous to people, but to Bae, that’s the only way she can let out what she is feeling. Imagine a girl so lonely that on her birthday, the only thing she can talk to is her Louis Vuitton bag! Her vulnerabilities make her who she is. She is lonely and was invisibilised.”
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