In a brightly lit café in the heart of Mumbai, we sit down for a candid chat. She greets me with a warm smile, immediately putting me at ease with her infectious energy. Between anecdotes about working with acclaimed actors like Rajkummar Rao and exploring different genres, her authenticity and enthusiasm lights up the conversation. While doing Srikanth, Alaya was struck by the fact that in many ways our country wasn’t geared to help disabled people. She says, “In Srikanth’s story, you’ll see how many hurdles came his way, not because he was blind, but because people weren’t geared to assist those who were blind. We had rules in place that overlooked people with disabilities. That’s what the majority of his fight has been about. The movie just shed more light on the fact that it is not a lack of capability but a lack of resources. It’s as simple as putting a ramp outside a restaurant and not only having stairs. It is more accessible for someone who is in a wheelchair. These are the little things that I feel should be implemented everywhere. Just little things in different ways that can help include more people and make everything more accessible.”
She played Srikanth’s wife Swathi in the film. Her character was someone who looked beyond the obvious, focusing on her partner’s merits rather than his disabilities. Discussing her character, Alaya states, “I met the real-life Swathi, who is absolutely lovely. She is Srikanth’s silent strength in many ways. She is very soft-spoken yet very strong. She is lovely, wonderful, loving, and caring. But the character that was written is very out-there, exuberant, bright, and talkative. The real Swathi is all of that but in a much more demure, soft, and silent way. At least that’s what I gathered from my interactions with her at that time. So, I had a big conflict in my head because when you meet someone you are supposed to play, you are really observing the way they are, but there were some creative liberties taken on paper.” That got a little confusing for her at some points. But she thoroughly enjoyed playing Swathi’s character. She thinks the main tools that an actor has when they are doing any role are their costume, hair, and makeup. “I think being dressed as the character is the easiest way to feel like your character because you look like what your character is supposed to look like. So, that really helped me. Other than that, it is a happy, fun, and light character for most of it, so it was good fun to play.”
It was a conscious choice for her to take on such a challenging movie. She wanted to be a part of something that was beautiful and special. She loves biopics and inspirational stories. “This is a movie that I’d really love to watch. So that is why I decided to do it. I just said that this is a wonderful story and I want to be a part of it in whatever way I can be,” she asserts. She found the movie inspiring while making it. When she read the script, she thought that if she didn’t know that this was a real-life story, she wouldn’t have believed it. “It is incredible to think about how the real Srikanth has managed to do all of that. He faced every obstacle with a positive attitude. Tushar Hiranandani sir, whom I call TS, had told me about Srikanth’s life and his story. I remember being mesmerised. I came back home that day and researched Srikanth very deeply.”She was totally in awe of her co-star Rajkummar Rao, who brought the visually challenged entrepreneur Srikanth Bolla to life through his performance. Alaya says Rao was fully in character on the set all the time. “I have met Srikanth in person and then I have seen Raj as Srikanth. It is incredible what he has managed to do with the character. He is so prepared and professional. He is such a giving actor and a wonderful person. I feel really, really lucky to have worked with him,” she gushes.
She comes from an illustrious family. Her maternal grandfather, Kabir Bedi, is an actor of international stature and her mother, Pooja Bedi, also shone in films in the ’90s. She says while conversations at family gatherings do revolve around cinema, she doesn’t discuss her career with family. “I do talk about films with my Nana but my mother is hopelessly out of touch. When she watched Bade Miyan Chote Miyan, she was gushing about Tiger Shroff’s action skills and Akshay sir’s comic timing. I had to tell her that that’s what they’re known for.” She does involve them if she’s in two minds about something. She relies on her team to give her proper feedback. “I have always handled my career very independently with my team. My team is really close to me. I have been with the same team since before I even signed my first film.”Alaya’s Instagram account is admired for its authenticity. She makes sure to put out the content she personally enjoys watching. She adds there’s another side to social media. Looking at her posts people assume her to be an ultra-healthy, super-fit person. “I’m not saying I am not fit or I’m not healthy but it’s not that I don’t have my unhealthy days, weeks, and months. I think I need to show more of that side now. I also always try to understand what people are understanding through my social media.” She recently put something up on mental health and that got quite a lot of traction. She hastily confirms that her mental health has been good and that she knows how to snap out of sadness. “When you first go through a bout of sadness and come out of it, you develop a lot of tools. So, even if you feel sadness creeping in or you have phases when you are low, you know exactly how to get out of it because you have the required tools. You might have to use the tools a little differently because not all sadness is the same but you get equipped to handle that sadness.”
She doesn’t have a preference when it comes to genres and just wants to invest in good stories and good directors. She describes herself as being a complete director’s actor. “I want to really work on films that demand something out of me. I want to feel challenged, I want to grow. I think that’s the main thing for me. I want to find something that will help me grow more as an actor. I want to feel satisfied as an actor. The two performances that I am actually proud of are the two films that I shot the earliest in my career, Jawani Janeman and Almost Pyar With DJ Mohabbat, which was by Anurag sir. Though my performances have received love, as an actor, I haven’t been satisfied. So, that’s what I am looking for now.”
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