'Dream Girl 2' Actor Ananya Panday Talks About Criticism And Online Trolling, Says 'People Often Forget......'

In Ayushmann Khurrana's 'Dream Girl 2', the follow-up to his box office smash 'Dream Girl' (2019), Ananya Panday will be essaying the role of the female lead as a small-town girl.

Ananya Panday and Ayushmann Khurrana starrer 'Dream Girl 2' releases on August 25. ( Image Source :@ananyapanday/instagram. )

New Delhi: In Ayushmann Khurrana's 'Dream Girl 2', the follow-up to his box office smash 'Dream Girl' (2019), Ananya Panday will be essaying the role of the female lead as a small-town girl. Ananya, who has primarily portrayed glamorous characters of ladies from big cities, essays the role of a girl hailing from Uttar Pradesh's Mathura in the Raaj Shaandilyaa directed film.

In an interview with the Indian Express, Ananya discussed her growth and learning over the past four years after making her acting debut in Karan Johar's'Student of the Year 2' (2019).  The 25-year-old also discusses how her personal life is impacted by the constant media attention and online trolling.

Ananya is pleased to be working on Dream Girl 2, a "content driven film" and to be teamed with one of our nation's most in-demand "performance-oriented" actors, Ayushmann Khurrana.

On sharing screen space with Ayushmann Khurrana in 'Dream Girl 2', Ananya said, "Ayushmann was tip-top. By the time he would get ready and come on set, it would feel like there was a guest appearance in the film because he was unrecognisable. He was actually giving me tips on nail polish, he had learnt everything. We would go through our lines multiple times before the take so that we had the lines and dialect out of the way. When we were in front of the camera, we had a free flow and could improvise.”

Talking about breaking out from the image of an urban girl with her upcoming film, Ananya said, "Luckily our shoot began in Mathura so I spent a lot of time there. When I was not shooting I would go out, eat local food, and observe people. We had a dialect coach Yashu (Yash Chaturvedi) and I spoke a lot to Raj sir and basically observed a lot of people and got the look right. A lot of people told me not to learn the dialect, but I really wanted to learn it and get it right. It was very important for me.”

Paresh Rawal, Annu Kapoor, Rajpal Yadav, Vijay Raaz, Asrani, Abhishek Banerjee, and Seema Pahwa are just a few of the excellent actors in the ensemble cast of the movie, according to Ananya, but each character's story is very clearly defined. "I can concentrate on my character since I don't have to worry about being recognised as Ananya. As an actor, I might actually approach the situation differently this time. The key is to improve with each film and, ideally, attract a new audience. So, I'm concentrating more on that. Additionally, Ayushmann generally emphasises that the movie is the main focus and does not centre on him or his performance. In addition, there are a lot of actors in this movie, making it an ensemble piece."

Ananya has taken the brunt of the nepotism controversy ever since she made her acting debut in Student of the Year, which was produced by Karan Johar. "There is a fine line between feedback and negative trolling," Ananya explains in reference to handling the criticism. I am okay with receiving criticism as long as it is constructive. I always agree when someone says "you can do this" or "do this in a different way." Never in my life do I want to stop growing and learning. As an actor, you have to be flexible, but when it comes to trolling, I try not to pay too much attention to it.