Actress Riyana Sukla has worked both in Ollywood and Bollywood. Two of her latest films- horror web series ‘Fancy’ (in Hindi) and Odia film, ‘A Dil Tate Deli’ are ruling on OTT platform MX Player.
Recently Riyana talked about the people of Odisha who judge girls by their outfits.
“I would say not only in Odisha, people are always judgemental about all female outfits, especially when it comes to film actress. A lot of people have this misconception that women dress up to get attention. But one thing I want to share, we actresses are just doing our job to entertain the audience. If an outfit is short that doesn’t mean our motive is to show skin. What I felt in the last few years is that the mindsets of people is Odisha is regarding female outfits is slowly improving and it has a long way to go,” Riyana said.
She further added, “Inspite of comming from a conservative household, my parents have never stopped me from wearing shorts. In fact, they always keep saying an Odia phrase ‘Je Deshe Jai Ce Phala Khai’ which means wherever you go get indulged in their culture.”
“Being Odia-Bengali, I personally love to wear all the traditional outfits be it sarees or shalwars. I get fit into every outfit depending on where I am going and with what purpose”, she said.
Born in Cuttack district of Odisha, Riyana completed her schooling in Kamalakanta Vidyapitha, govt high school in the district. Later, her higher studies continued at Ravenshaw University and she completed her graduation in Economics honours from there itself.
With love for acting since childhood, Riyana completed her graduation and made her mind to follow the path of her dreams to become an actress. She left her home town in the year 2012 to start her new journey in Mumbai as an actress. Riyana did her acting course in the well-known institute, ‘Roshan Taneja school of Acting’. Popular actors and actress of Bollywood Industry like Anil Kapoor, Ranbir, Govinda, Rani Mukherjee, Shabana Nazmi, Juhi Chawla, Abhishek Bachchan his mother Jaya, Nasheerudin are the alumni student of that acting institute.
“I started my career as a model and then, I got the offer in Hindi films. It was not easy to start a career directly from the Hindi industry. As I don’t have any godfather in the film line, it went quite tought for me during my struggle period”, said Riyana.
She added, “It took me around a year to groom myself and do proper research about the industry. After all such hurdles, I got my first offer as a second lead actress in 2014 for the movie ‘Mr MBA’ “.
Later, Riyana got back to back film offers in movies like ‘Lakhnowi Ishq’ as 2nd lead (Hindi). Her first debut film as a lead actress was ‘Life ki Aisi ki Taisi’ (Hindi). Later She did few movies like ‘Kashi’ movie with Sharman Joshi, Haryanvi feature film- ‘Jaat Battalion’. ‘I know You” (Hindi), ‘Ae Dil Tate Deli’ (Odia), and Fancy (Hindi horror web series).
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“The reason why I started my career in Hindi Industry was I thought of learning new techniques, knowledge and apply them in my state,” said the actress.
Apart from movies, the actress did some music video like Kaanch (Hindi), Sukoon (Hindi) and one Odia song ‘To pakhare atakichhi’. Luckily the Odia music video got an engagement of 3 million + views.
Riyana also did a few commercial shoots for Amore Italian Gelato, Danube Home, Dubai, few Calendar Shoot for Jubilee Fashion, Print Shoot for Flipkart, Amazon, Jewellery Shoot, Subha Samay Agarbati shoot, commercial shoot for sandwich restaurant, Magazine Shoot, Cover page shoot for international magazine splash and for GASK perfume.
Being a proper Cuttackia girl, the actress never misses the chance of eating Dahi bara, and all street foods, whenever she returned from Mumbai. “As I spend less time in Odisha, whenever I come home, my mom offers me a plate full of all Odia dishes like a Chappan bhog, be it pitha pana or curries. I love Crab curry, Dalma and everything. I am a big foodie and also take care of my diet”, she said.
The actress is conscious about her fitness goals. “I love doing workout, even I can spend four hours in the gym doing workout continuously”, says Riyana.
Talking about the growth of the film industry, the actress said, “Both the Ollywood and Bollywood industries have developed a lot, be technically or clarity wise. Still, the industry needs to change its content and bring something own from real happenings.”
The actress who always tries to act in different character has a dream of acting the role like Paro of Devdas movie, a psycho and mentally disturbed kind of character.
In the coming days, Riyana’s hindi film ‘The end’ and Odia ‘Tu Achhu Ta Mu Achhi’ is yet to release.
Interview Conducted by Pratika Priyadarshini
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