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Journey begins

Harika

She is Harika for the Telugu audience and Payal Ghosh for others. Model-turned-actress Harika loved doing dramas in school and nurtured a dream to enter the glam world even as a child. After her debut film Prayanam, offers are pour ing in but she prefers to pick quality subjects. Meanwhile, she is looking forward to her debut film in Hindi as well.

A graduate of Political Science from Scottish College Church, Harika participated in many stage shows and dramas and the appreciation she got for her work encouraged her to move further. She adds, “At the back of my mind, I had this thought that I could do better but was scared of approaching my father.” Coming from a conservative family, the word ‘films’ was a taboo in the house. Her father felt that his daughter was not cut out for a career in films as he considered the movie industry a big bad world for the fair sex.

“It took a lot of convincing from my sister and a friend before my dad relented. The encouragement from my sister was huge. We lost our mother when we were kids and we are very close,” says Harika.” With her father’s permission she joined Kishore Namit’s acting institute and bumped into Chandra Sekhar Yeleti who was auditioning in Mumbai. That’s how her ‘Prayanam’ in films began.

The actress says her father is happy with her decision now. About the movie, she says she signed it because the story was different and she had heard of Yeleti being a well known and a talented director. Wasn’t she bored shooting on one location throughout the film? She laughs, “They shot for around 42 days at the airport and my working days were 35. Initially it was boring but later we all bonded like a family. I keep telling myself that next time If I were to go to Malaysia I would never touch the airport. I’d land in Singapore and then go to Malaysia by road.”

Harika is all praise for Brahmanandam. She adds, “I heard he is a big star. He was with us in Malaysia for three or four days and made me comfortable. Manoj, my co-star too would translate the lines for me.”

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