Saiyami Kher: After Mirzya didn’t work, filmmakers who'd signed me hired others

Actor Saiyami Kher doesn’t believe in rushing into things and that’s evident from how she takes her own time in signing up for films, too. She started off in Bollywood with Mirzya (2016), and since then, has starred in five projects till date — three films, two web shows.

Not sticking to Hindi films was a decision that she took consciously. “It happened organically. When I started off, I didn’t know anything at all. The first step was going to school and learning the basics of being in front of the camera. After long tedious three years of auditioning, Mirzya happened. That too was a six month auditioning process. Unfortunately it didn’t do well at the box office,” she tells us.

And that led to a ripple effect, which wasn’t really in her favour. She confesses, “I had signed a few other films with big filmmakers, but after Mirzya, they decided to go ahead with someone else, who was commercially more successful.”

But, Kher didn’t let any of this deter her spirits. She starred opposite Riteish Deshmukh in the Marathi hit Mauli (2018), and then web shows such as Special OPS and Breathe: Into The Shadows. Her web film, Choked, also garnered good reviews.

In fact, the actor reveals that Choked’s director Anurag Kashyap was going to collaborate with her earlier as well, on a different project.

“After Mirzya, Anurag said to me he wants to do a film with me, and sent a script. I was very excited, but it never took off. I was also doing a Tamil film and had done workshops, that also never took off. It was a low phase, my film hadn’t worked, and the few things I signed, went. Mauli was exciting... a hardcore commercial film, and at the same time, the girl had a lot to do. It helped me break my glam image that was created after Mirzya. Things started moving a bit after that,” she shares.

Unpaused, an anthology of five short films with pandemic and lockdown as the theme, featured Kher as the protagonist in one of the films. “I’ve just gotten back about 10 days ago from Manali. I was shooting for my film with Nagarjuna sir. It’s an action-packed one, and I’m playing a RAW agent,” gushes Kher about being busy with work now.

Follow @htshowbiz for more