Shreya Chaudhary spills the beans on tasting success

Shreya Chaudhry, who is in the news because of the success of her OTT series Bandish Bandits, made her Bollywood debut with Dear Maya (2017), where her co-stars were Madiha Imam and Manisha Koirala. The film had her playing a young girl who writes letters to a lonely old lady.

Shreya has fond memories of the film and says she learnt much from Manisha Koirala. She is a diehard boxing enthusiast and is also into MMA training. That explains her well-toned body. And she loves driving big bikes. Like her character Tamanna Sharma from Bandish Bandits, she owns a Bullet and goes on long rides during her free time. She could certainly relate to that part of her character in the series.

Shreya became an actor because of her elder brother Karan, who is now settled in the US and whom she loves to death. Younger siblings often idolise the elder and such was the case with Shreya too. Her brother had an outgoing personality and was always winning elocution and debate competitions in school. The actress, who was something of an introvert back then, was inspired by him to take part in such competitions herself. After being scared initially, she found she rather liked facing a sea of people and putting her points across to them. She opened up on stage and then there was no turning back. She was good academically and taking part in extra-curricular activities resulted in her being named the head girl of her school. “The seed for performing was sown early on in my life,” she muses. She recalls having an unusual answer as a child when someone asked her what she would become when she grew up. She chuckles, “When someone asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, they expected ‘doctor’ or ‘lawyer’ to be my answer but I used to tell them I wanted to be a mirror because I wanted everyone to look at me.”