In a candid conversation with Dear Maya’s newbie Shreya Singh Chaudhry aka Ira who is born and brought up in Mumbai was a performer during her early school days she used to participate in dramas, elocutions, and debates.
The actress never thought of taking up acting as a career, once she had auditioned for a Pepsi ad and got selected for it. The ad was directed by the popular director Abhishek Kapoor, so that’s where it kicked off her acting career.
Dear Maya’s audition…
There were in all three rounds of the audition, I had appeared for all three, after few days I received a call from the Mukesh Chhabra’s office. They said, ‘Shreya you are locked’, at that instant I couldn’t understand what they meant by locked so I called my Mum and asked her. She told me they meant that I am doing the project. I was so happy after hearing this, a girl who was a fresh college pass out, having a year’s experience of modelling and then this opportunity plus working with such great artist (Manisha Koirala) was a cherry on the cake.
How was the experience of sharing screen space with Manisha Koirala?
Manisha ma'am is amazing; I just love to watch her on screen. Sharing screen space with her is simply great, she is my favourite. Her story inspires me to do more hard work; she is not only a great actor but also a great human being. Manisha ma'am is so calm and composed that I never felt that I am working with one of the biggest stars of Indian cinema. She used to keep on telling me “jo bhi karogi dil se karo”, so overall it was a marvellous experience.
Have you received love letters?
Love letters? No, I haven’t received any love letters, unfortunately.Today’s era is of social media and nobody prefer to write letters, but I feel that if you are writing a love letter should be romantic. My character Ira is very inspired by mills and boons (romance imprint of UK) so by default she wants it to be spicy and romantic. The only similarity between me and Ira is, we are happy to go lucky girls and wants to live our lives to the fullest.
Have you ever come across anyone like Mayadevi in real life?
Honestly, I don’t think that there would be anybody like Mayadevi. My director Sunaina Bhatnagar had read a news article many years back, which was similar to our story. Whatever is happening in the world today, looking at this atmosphere we cannot deny the fact that Mayadevi does not exist, not exactly Mayadevi but there might be some closeted ones out there and for such people, our movie is the ray of hope.
Dear Maya doesn’t seem like a commercial film, what expectations do you have?
Yes! I do agree that it’s not a typical commercial film but a story oriented film. The genre of the movie is drama but the story is definitely not about the love between a girl and a guy but it is about love and friendship and love of various kinds. I think that the audience will like the concept as it is very fresh and also something that has not been screened in recent times.
What’s next for Shreya…
Waiting for the response of the audience for Dear Maya and then to follow my only mantra “Keep working harder and keep moving forward”.
This pretty damsel is a Bollywood freak, loves watching movies like Dil Chahta Hai(2001), Anand (1971), Rang De Basanti(2006), Kal Ho Na Ho (2003)and much more. Amitabh Bachchan is her biggest inspiration; Rani Mukherjee and Kareena Kapoor are her role models, their movies have helped Shreya carving her acting career.
Dear Maya released on 2 June 2017 starring Manisha Koirala, Madiha Imam and Shreya Singh Chaudhry.
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