
Ananya Panday opened up on her journey in the Hindi film industry as an actor and said that when she was starting out, there was fear and it hasn’t gone away since. She was speaking at the promotional event for the animated film Inside Out 2, for which she has dubbed the character of Riley in Hindi.
Speaking to reporters at the event, she said, “It is one aspect that tied into really what I have been speaking about quite some time. We can't just feel toxic positive all of a sudden. We have to feel all the emotions, there has to be sadness to balance out happiness.”
She said that it was difficult to put fear away. “As a young actor who started out when she was 18, there was fear and there always will be fear,” the actor said. “Putting yourself out there can be scary and fearful. Someone once told me that by not being yourself you might get 100 people to like you but being yourself even if five people like you in the long run, then that is much more fulfilling. And that is what I try to go by as it will give me joy.”
Inside Out 2 is a sequel to the Oscar-winning 2015 animated film Inside Out, which told the story of a young girl named Riley, who adapts to her family's relocation as five personified emotions control her thoughts and actions. Eventually, she is able to tackle these emotions and set free.
Ananya reflected on the experience of dubbing for the film and said, “When I dub for a character I'm playing, I usually do a lot of overthinking because I think about the back story and emotions during the shoot. When I dubbed for this, I realised I am a teenage girl and I just have to think how I was as a teenager.”
She also had to watch the first part of the film, which she enjoyed revisiting. “I was very free and wasn't tied into doing something specific," she said.
Inside Out 2 returns to the mind of newly-minted teenager Riley just as Headquarters is undergoing a sudden demolition to make room for something entirely unexpected: new Emotions.
It is directed by Kelsey Mann. The English version of the film is voiced by Amy Poehler, Maya Hawke, Liza Lapira, Tony Hale, Lewis Black, Phyllis Smith, Ayo Edebiri, Lilimar, Grace Lu, Sumayyah Nuriddin-Green, Adele Exarchopoulos, Diane Lane, Kyle MacLachlan, Paul Walter Hauser and Yvette Nicole Brown. It is set to be released in theatres in English and Hindi on June 14.