'PEOPLE SEEM TO BE INTIMIDATED BY ME'

Payal Rajput, recently seen in Leader, opens up about navigating cinema as an outsider, being ahead of the curve on social media, and why ignorance is truly blissful

- AVINASH RAMACHANDRAN

HONESTLY, I don't remember the last time an interviewee responded to my first question with the words, “Wow, you are intelligent, and I can see that you are skillful.”

Apart from being an immediate serotonin boost, these words can also bring out your inner cynic, and make you go: What if it is sarcasm? But actor Payal Rajput isn't someone who filters her honest thoughts, and revels in letting her stream of consciousness flow through her words. Serotonin boost, it is. But the question that made her say those words was, “Don't you think you should be getting better roles that allow you to do a lot more than what you are asked to do?” And after giving yours truly a swing of serotonin, Payal says, “You have to make peace with being stereotyped because not all actors have control over it. Life is very tough. An actor wakes up every day with uncertainty. Will we get the right calls? Do we let go of one opportunity waiting for another, which might not come?”

In the time it took to say this, Payal moved on from being an upbeat person to a rather pensive one. “I haven’t been working for the past year and a half. I lost my father to cancer about eight months back, and I’ve been going through a lot,” says the actor, taking a pause, before adding, “My father’s parting words were, ‘You have to chase your dreams. You have to move on. You cannot stop here. Cancer is taking me, but not my love for you...’” Fuelled by these words, Payal made her comeback onscreen after a couple of years with RS Durai Senthilkumar’s