Sanya Malhotra is a changeling. All good actors are. She rigorously trained in wrestling for eight months for just a 180-second scene in the blockbuster Dangal starring Aamir Khan in 2016. She chopped off her long, curly locks and was the only girl in the crew to smile afterwards. She lost the final round of a dance reality show in 2009, but choreographed Aamir for the ‘Sexy Baliye’ song in his 2017 production Secret Superstar. Her last four movies were all OTT hits.
Her latest role is as G Meenakshi in Meenakshi Sundareshwar, released on Netflix during Diwali. It is now the third-most watched film on the network with over 2.8 million views in the first week. Following the spate of strong female characters in Hollywood and European films, OTT is catching on—Malhotra’s Meenakshi is a strong, vocal and independent Tamil girl who needs to work on her long-distance marriage with her techie husband who pretends to be single in order to get a job. And now she is excited to play the smitten, hands-on wife Siloo in Sam Bahadur opposite Vicky Kaushal. “In the end, it all worked out for me,” she grins. From Meenaskhi to Maneckshaw, that’s quite a career arc for an actor with five years in showbiz.
This trained ballet dancer from Delhi exudes gratitude for her cinematic good fortune as 2022 begins. “It has been professionally a fulfilling year. I had five releases—Photograph, Shakuntala Devi, Ludo, Pagglait and Meenakshi Sundareshwar. I’m feeling bullish about 2022 since I have HIT with Rajkummar Rao due for release soon. Actors dream of getting variety and diversity in their roles, which I have been lucky with,” she chimes in. Incidentally, media reports talked about the Pagglait girl buying a Rs14 crore property in Mumbai. She simply shrugs that hard work got her where she is.
Talk of hard work reminds one of Malhotra’s super zany ‘Dhobi fitness challenge’ in January 2020 with YouTuber Prajakta Koli. Draped in a Maharashtrian Lavni sari and wearing a nose ring for the mulgi effect, she competes with the host in pounding clothes in a bucket. Although she did not train to wash dirty linen in public, Malhotra recalls months of training for Pataakha. She prepared for the role by learning to walk around balancing a water pot on her head in a village near Jaipur. “Workshops are the best way to get into a character. It helps you to understand the nitty-gritty of the role. I have to first convince myself that I am the character. Once that happens, half the battle is won.”
What’s her biggest fear as an actor? “Repeating myself,” she responds. “That I should always play versatile roles and never repeat is what drives my decisions,” says the Delhi University graduate who volunteered for the cause of animals last year. She lent her voice to spread the message on social media through #AdoptWithSanya for the animal care NGO Forever Furry Friends. Malhotra shocked the country and her 2.4 million followers on Instagram early this year by announcing that she reads every comment on her feed. However, she mindfully posts only what she needs to. “Social media enables us to communicate with the audience regardless of whether or not a release is coming that week.”
Besides acting, the 29-year-old actor aces fitness and dance. Her posts with her trainer Tridev Pandey show off the energy of her high voltage dances. She enjoys every opportunity to do a jig, be it on screen, for a reality show or online. But if she had to decide among dance, fitness and acting, what would it be? Acting, of course. “Fitness and dance are allied skills that help me get better at my craft. A is for acting,” she emphasises. With all the As she has on her filmi mark sheet, Malhotra is ahead of the curve.
Most Googled Question
Readers often ask on Google: “Is Sanya Malhotra’s curly hair real? How does she take care of it?
My curly hair is as real as I am. Super authentic. At school, I wished for normal, straight hair since I was insecure about my curly hair. Talk about body shaming. But over the years, I have understood that my hair has a brain of its own. I have cracked the code to tame my tresses. I use shampoo and conditioner during my shower. Then, I use a leave-in conditioner and go about my hair. That does the trick. My two cents to everyone is to embrace your unique hair and flaunt it in style.
Coming up
Sam Bahadur with Vicky Kaushal
Love Hostel with Vikrant Massey and Bobby Deol
HIT with Rajkummar Rao