Saiyami Kher made her Hindi film debut in 2016 with Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra’s Mirzya. Though it was a romantic period drama, it was still an atypical choice for a newcomer. The actor’s subsequent projects, to name a few, include Choked and Unpaused (both 2020), which also seemed like unusual picks considering she didn’t play a conventional Bollywood heroine in either of them. So, is she consciously staying away from roles that require her to play a conventional leading lady? Kher shares, 

“I did a (Marathi) film called Mauli (2018) with (actor) Riteish Deshmukh and really enjoyed it. It was not just dancing around, but it also had a strong character. But, to be honest, I have not been offered too many commercial films like that [till now].” 

However, there’s one genre, she says, that she will absolutely stay away from — sex comedy. “I won’t do them. They are very crass. I guess it has a big audience, but it is not something I would be comfortable or happy doing. And if I am not happy when I go to a film set, then I don’t want to be there,” says Kher, who made her acting debut with the Telugu film Rey (2015).  

Anything besides that, she says, she would love to do. “It will be challenging as an actor [to be part of masala potboilers], because I am not at all that person. But I don’t think of it (the typical movie heroine role) as ‘Oh, they’re dancing around trees’, there’s a lot of hard work involved,” says Kher, who was most recently seen in Ashwiny Iyer Tiwari’s Faadu and will next be seen in R Balki’s Ghoomer.

Calling Govinda her favourite actor growing up, she says, “He was always my hero; I love him even now... It will be a big challenge for me to see whether I can do commercial films or not. Who wouldn’t want to be in this big world, where they blow up cars and dance? It’s something that all of us grew up watching.”