Payal Ghosh

Prayanam’s Harika Payal Ghosh a model turned actress, Payal Ghosh loved doing dramas in school and nurtured a dream to enter the glam world even as she was a child.

Harika is now a household name in AP. The Mumbai girl, however says, “I have just done a tele serial with the History Channel and also played the part of Padme, in the hit UK film Sharpe’s Peril, which stars Nandana Sen.”

Her debut film ‘Prayanam’ released a few weeks back, offers are pouring in but the actress is in no hurry. She prefers to pick only quality stories. Meanwhile her debut film in Hindi is progressing and she says it might take time to wrap it up.

A graduate of Political Science from Scottish College Church, Payal participated in many stage shows and dramas and the appreciation she got for her work encouraged her to move further. She adds, “At the back of my mind, I had this thought that I could do better but was scared of approaching my father.” She comes from a conservative family, and the word movies is a taboo in the house. Her father always felt that his daughter was not cut out for a career in films as he considered movie industry like any other person to be a big bad world for the fair sex.

“It took a lot of convincing from my sister who is in the eleventh standard and a friend Anusha and dad relented. The encouragement from my sister was huge. We lost our mother when we were kids and we are very very close,” quips Payal. After her father’s permission she joined Kishore Namit Kapoor Acting Institute and bumped into Chandra Sekhar Yeleti who was auditioning in Mumbai. That’s how her Prayanam in films began.

The actress says her father is very happy with her decision now, no longer apprehensive and feels that it is entirely up to the individual, how you conduct yourself in the industry that matters. About the movie, she says she signed it because the story was so different from the regular ones and she had heard of Chandra Sekhar Yeleti being a big and a talented director and she was with the right unit.

Post the film’s release, the actress is back to modelling in Mumbai while she is finalising a few scripts.