Guwahati:  Born and brought up in Guwahati, Priyasha Bhardwaj has definitely carved a niche in the city of dreams Mumbai through her distinctive and stellar performance in Aarya, a web series.

Priyasha plays former Miss Universe Sushmita Sen’s younger sister Soundarya in Aarya which is currently airing in Disney+Hotstar. 

Aarya is a multi-starrer family crime-drama series directed by national award winner Ram Madhvani that also marks Sushmita Sen’s comeback into screen after a decennium. 

Priyasha started schooling at St. Mary’s, Guwahati and her latter half of schooling was done in Sanskriti School, Delhi. 

A Psychology graduate from Delhi University, and a trained Bharatnatyam dancer, Priyasha always had a keen interest in dancing and later began to explore her creative interests in theatre, too. She also learnt Jazz and other Western dance forms at Ashley Lobo’s The Danceworx.

Although the actor hails from the family of a theatre icon in Assam, the late Satya Prasad Baruah (a Sangeet Natak Akademi awardee), the film industry wasn’t her dream profession growing up. But yes, dance, music and later theatre had always been within her.

Speaking to News Live Priyasha said, “Pursuing dance as a hobby slowly nudged me in the direction of performing arts. And later, theatre helped me honing the craft of acting.”

She added, “Back in college, I got my first modelling assignment with Dove and featured in the Dove-Femina colab calendar campaign “Beautiful hair and Beautiful You” in 2009. It still gives me immense happiness to remember those days as I thoroughly enjoyed my first ever shoot and people really liked my face. And to my surprise the photos were in hoardings in Delhi and NCR.”

Priyasha’s first TVC was for Britannia Good Day with Deepika Padukone, post which she cracked several Ad auditions which made her shift her base to Mumbai in 2018. 

The journey of Priyasha began with doing several commercials, and it was through these assignments that she managed to audition for the character of Soundarya in the Disney+Hotstar series Aarya. Some of her projects include Amazon Prime’s Made in Heaven and Kaafir on Zee5 co-starring Dia Mirza. 

How did Aarya happen? 

“Basically I started from scratch. From auditioning for ads and small roles made me what I am today. I still remember auditioning for Aarya. Casting Director Abhimanyu Ray, with whom I have already done a lot of projects was the one who helped me audition for Aarya. A few days later, I received a message from him that I got the part of Soundarya. And this is how Aarya landed to me.”

How was the experience of working with Sushmita Sen? 

“To be honest I was awestruck by Sushmita Sen since my childhood. I had grown up admiring her. I myself wanted to become just like her. She has been an inspiration for me. When I was young, I would try to to look and act like her. In fact in my head I was Sushmita Sen.  My first-ever professional choreographed song was ‘Chunari Chunari’. I remember teaching a group of ladies on this particular song. And yes, I enjoyed that, too. But the universe had some different plans for me and finally I got a chance to meet and know her as a person, and what a gem of a person she is. She is a wonderful human being and a delightfully generous co-actor. She basically never made me feel like I am a fresher. She was always there, and yes, she is definitely a good listener. I am very lucky to have got this chance of working with her and am definitely waiting eagerly to work with her all again.”

How was your experience with Aarya as Soundarya?

The character of Soundarya has definitely evolved me as an actor and has made me more professional. The character has taught me a lot in terms of technical film acting. I was one of the youngest and the newest on set. Even the child actors had been working for longer than I had. So honestly, it wasn’t that difficult. The moment I walked on the set, I was Soundarya, younger sister of Aarya , married to Bob Wilson. The best part about this shooting format was we were always in character.

Later this year, she will be seen playing a completely different character in Amazon Prime’s Mirzapur 2.

Priyasha quotes, “The character I am playing in Mirzapur 2 is quite raw and more desi in comparison to the character of Soundarya. Though Aarya and Mirzapur 2 both are crime thrillers but are way different from each other. And I have transformed myself into a character I have never played before for the series.”

Where do you see yourself in the next 5 years?

I want to continue acting and want to portray different kinds of characters and evolve myself as a better actor. I also want to work with a lot of directors whom I have grown up admiring such as Vishal Bharadwaj, Sanjay Leela Bansali, Meera Nair Zoya Akhtar, to name a few. And most importantly, I want to make my mother proud of me and I hope she is proud of me as people have loved me for the role of Soundarya.”

Aarya series begins with Soundarya’s royal Rajasthani wedding (to a charming American musician, played by Alexx O’ Nell) and ends with her tragic fate – both causing irreparable damages to Aarya’s life.