In an exclusive chat with ETimes, Saiyami opens up about her struggles in the industry, how Anurag Kashyap became his backbone and how the nepotism debate backfired on him.
Tell me how the metro happened to you at 8 in the morning.
the film came to me because Affection Kashyap. Raj, who is the director and producer of the film, and I were associated with Anurag earlier as well. So, Anurag asked me to speak to Raj and I loved the script. I know the set up is really trivial. The production was new, the director was new, but the script was something that I really liked because it was one of those scripts that I read and didn’t feel like putting me down. It was a very emotional and deep script. So that’s pretty much why I said yes to it. This is probably the first independent film I have done but it was a lot of fun.
then, of course, Gulshan (Devaiah) is someone I have worked with earlier in Nikkhil Advani’s short film Unposed. We really hit it off when we worked together on Unposed. I really wanted to do a feature with him so that could happen too. He is a very good actor and he is someone I find very comfortable with. So it was very easy to work with him as we know our style. He was always ready to do more and more rehearsals. So it is a lot of fun working with Gulshan.
You said that this film came because of Anurag…
He introduced me to Raj and I didn’t know him before. Raj had worked with Anurag. This is how Anurag got us in touch with each other. Anurag is one of them, I go to him whenever work comes to me. He’s like my go-to person in town. He always knows what I’m working on. So it was something they said I should read up on and see if I was willing to do it.
How important is Anurag Kashyap in your life?
He is my favorite for pretty much everything regarding my career. You can expect absolute honesty and only honesty from Anurag and I love it. I do not like to talk here and there, so he immediately comes to his point. He will tell you what is real and what is not. And of course there’s someone you can go to and pick up the phone at any time, who’s been in the industry for so long. I am also a big fan of AK’s work. So I would keep saying that he spoils actors because once you work with him it’s like ‘Oh, I want to come back to Anurag Kashyap’s set’. So I am saying again, I want to be back on Anurag Kashyap’s sets and I am looking forward to working with him again.
You made your debut with Mirzya but it didn’t do well commercially. How did people start contacting you after that?
It was definitely a dream launch for anyone. it was Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra After Bhaag Milkha Bhaag, Gulzar Sahab and Shankar Ehsaan Loy launch Anil Kapoor’s son Harshvardhan Kapoor after 18 years. It had all the ingredients needed to become a dream launch pad but sometimes you make films, the results are not in your hands and film industry is like that. But you still follow your faith and do what you believe in, which didn’t work after Mirzya. It was a long struggle because no one was really supporting me and so I am very close to Anurag because he offered me like a choke almost a year after Mirzya and he said ‘I think your Have lots of potential. I want to work with you.’
He showed faith in me and that is a huge redeeming factor when a film doesn’t work, when people are not supporting you and a name like Anurag supports you then you feel ‘okay, I have this’ ‘ They gave me the validation I was looking for when I didn’t have a lot of work. But in between, I got breathless. I used to go to Anurag every time. He said that you must breathe. He always has foresight. He said that OTT is the future and Breathe was one of the new shows of that time. There weren’t too many OTT shows. Even with Special Ops, he said that it is a great team to work with and Neeraj Pandey will do something special. He made me do Special Ops and Breathe and then I did a film called Mauli with Riteish Deshmukh. So with all of this, I always went up to him and then of course we choked together.
You come from a strong film background, being the granddaughter of Usha Kiran and niece of Tanvi Azmi. Has it helped you in the industry in any way?
No, it didn’t really help in any way because this whole nepotism thing worked against me. To be honest, I am very close to my extended family, who are a part of the film industry, but they never really know what I am doing. I take decisions on my own. I have gone to Aram Nagar, auditioned on my own and that has been my journey. But then people can use the saying that he is from a film family when they want to use it. So unfortunately it worked against me at times. The positive side though is that like Shabana Masi, if I ever had to work on something, I would go to her. I used to ask him how I work on my voice, how I work on my Hindi. It was always a big positive, but as far as getting work, it’s always been on merit, everything I’ve auditioned for and everything I’ve done and then got the job.
Are you affected by other people’s opinion?
If you are an actor and you get influenced by other’s opinion then you will be in big trouble. So you need a thick skin because when you are an actor there are a lot of opinions. You need to have three-four people who are your favorite people whose opinion matters to you and clearly take all the criticism into account and see how you can work on it. But there should be a limited number of people to whom you go to get their opinion on what you should have done differently. If one of those three-four people says something, I get impressed, otherwise I don’t.
Would you like to name your go-to people?
My go to people are Anurag Kashyap, Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra and then R Balki because I did a film Ghoomar with them. My equation with him is the same as with AK and Rakesh sir. My other go-to people are my teachers like Adil Hussain and Dilip Shankar.
You just mentioned how coming from a film background backfired…
I didn’t mean it in a serious way. Like many times it was ‘it would be easy for him to get a job’, the opinion of people on social media was not true. it was not easy. Getting a job is still not easy. It has always been a struggle but thanks to my work like Faadu, it has been appreciated by a lot of directors. So thankfully my job has given me work, but nothing to do with my extended family that is part of the industry.
Are you happy with your journey so far?
Well, I am a happy person but I am not satisfied. Because I think if you are satisfied with where you are, you don’t aspire for more. That’s why I’m always happy, I’m grateful because I get to work with names like Anurag Kashyap, Neeraj Pandey, R Balki, Ashwini Iyer Tiwari, I just feel like I’m going to work with them . Best of the best directors in the country. But there is always the greed and hunger to work and do more because that is what drives the actor and keeps the actor alive.
If you were not an actor, what profession would you choose for yourself?
I can’t imagine myself doing anything else because if you have a Plan B, your Plan A doesn’t work. I am very interested in sports. It was not a plan but sport is something that I am very influenced by. So I would probably do something for sports.
What advice would you like to give to your younger self?
For me, my younger self, I would say don’t worry about the results as they are not in your hands. When you are an actor, success and failure are not in your hands. You just need to keep working on yourself, keep working on your craft and that’s the only thing you should focus on.