Actor Akanksha Pandey, known for her roles in the OTT series Aashram (2020) and Choona (2023), says shifting from her hometown Mirzapur to Lucknow helped her break into the industry, but eventually moving to Mumbai has led to her landing central characters and lead roles she has been seeking. “After completing mechanical engineering in Varanasi, I entered a beauty pageant to get into acting. I left my teaching job, moved to Lucknow, and my first project was as a crowd artist in superstar Rajinikanth’s film Petta (2019).
Luckily, I got a scene (Bajrang Dal V-day party) that went viral, leading to many memes. I even worked as a background dancer for Jabariya Jodi (2019),” says the actor during her visit to the city for the shoot of the film Gulaabi Reveri with actor Santosh Shukla. She got a role in Gunjan Saxena: The Kargil Girl (2020), but the OTT series Aashram changed things for her.
“I shot several good projects here, but the problem was production teams in Mumbai rarely offer primary characters to local artists. So, last year I moved, and things started working for me. I got filmmaker Neeraj Pandey’s OTT show Hack: Crimes Online , which gave me a good role.
Luckily, work brought me back to Uttar Pradesh, but now the roles were bigger,” says Pandey. This year, she worked on several noted projects. “I shot for the feature Raid-2 , which has a small role, but the project is very big! I did Waham , which stars actors Vijay Raaz and Adhyayan Suman, an independent film with Marathi actor Subhodh Bhave where I play his wife, I play the lead in the feature film Banaras Ban , and a cop in the film Bhagwat starring Arshad Warsi that we shot in Prayagraj.
Besides, I have also shot Pushpendra Nath Misra’s series Mr Saxena , which was shot in Bhopal,” she adds. On a concluding note, she says, “I have not attended any acting school, nor have I done plays. I have learned in front of the camera itself, and from crowd artist to playing lead in two films, it has been work that has fetched me better work.
I believe my acting, command of language due to hailing from the Hindi heartland, and being in the right place at the right time worked for me. I am just focusing on working and working as you don’t know which one will click!”.
