From heiress to hustler: Ananya Panday lists her top 3 survival skills ahead of new show

We loved Ananya Panday in Kho Gaye Hum Kahan. To this date, she receives praise for her portrayal of Ahana Singh, a 20-something girl trying to make it in the world alongside her two best friends, amid terrible heartbreak.

What made her so likeable in the film was her character's relatability. Who hasn't suffered a terrible heartbreak or brainstormed a business idea with their best mates?

Now, Ananya brings forth another character to life, Bella, in the upcoming Amazon Prime Video series Call Me Bae. The eight-episode series, directed by Collin D’Cunha, is a Dharmatic Entertainment Production with Karan Johar, Apoorva Mehta, and Somen Mishra as executive producers. In the show, Bella, who goes by the name Bae, has been downsized from an heiress to a hustler, discovering that her most valuable assets aren’t her diamonds, but her wits and style. Bella is broke, but is on a journey to find herself in the world.

"I almost feel like an older sister to her," Ananya said in a chat with City Times. "My feelings about her are super protective." Bella has a golden heart; she's kind, respectful, non-judgemental, and sees the best in everyone.

"But she definitely has her vulnerabilities," Ananya continued. "She feels lonely and misunderstood, so even though she may seem like something on the surface, there are a lot of layers to her, which you uncover when you watch more and more episodes. These are all of the reasons that I fell in love with her."

Her favourite thing about Bella? "She always stays the same no matter how much the world around her changes," Ananya answered. "In films, we always watch a character have this drastic transformation and then everything about them changes. I don't like that. What I like is the the fact that even though everything around the person may change, the good parts about them always stay the same."

For Ananya, Bella is a mix of a lot of people she knows in real life. "I don't think anyone exists entirely like her because she is completely out of this world," she said. "But there a couple of my school friends who do a lot of similar things; the way they talk, walk, use their hands and shoulders, the way they squint, and sanitise everything wherever they go. I've stolen a little bit from a few people for this character."

Call Me Bae, a comedy-drama series, remains light and stays true to the genre it is in, Ananya says, "but it stands for something and has a message towards the end. I would tell the audience to not expect anything because they will be pleasantly surprised with where the show goes."

As the show's main premise outlines struggling with being independent, we asked Ananya her top three skills for surviving out there in the world. "First, being a people's person because you have to communicate with the right people, the right tribe," she said, following it up with having "great bargaining skills" and being "street smart."

"Book intelligence isn't everything," she said. "You have to know the way around."

The OTT way

The Amazon Prime Video project is Ananya's debut series and it has been challenging for her in the sense that she's had to put in a lot more hours (even though she gets more screen time); it's a much larger commitment. "Even though it may seem like a very simplistic character, when you watch it on screen, the energy that goes into portraying her is always 100 per cent," she said. "Bella does comedy, drama, romance, and little bit of everything."

In the series, Ananya gets around eight hours to show different facets of her character. "As an actor, that's really exciting," she said.

Ananya, however, remains nervous ahead of the show's September 6 release date. In fact, yesteryear Bollywood star Chunky Panday's daughter is more nervous than before because of her feelings towards Bella. "This show feels like my personal baby," she said. "I've really put myself out there and tried to do something different and fun. So I'm really feeling the pressure."

The 25-year-old feels releases on OTT are like a "slow burn", unlike theatrical releases where you can see a clear response on the first weekend. "Maybe it (an OTT release) is more fulfilling in the long term but you are constantly waiting and asking people to watch it."

Interestingly, in Call Me Bae, Ananya's Bella navigates through the newsrooms of Mumbai as a social media journalist in a bid to find herself.

Ananya finds "asking questions" really interesting; when she was a child, Chunky would tell her to paint the question mark symbol on her forehead because she would keep asking questions. "I think making someone feel comfortable enough to talk and give their answers is a skill to have."

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