LOOKING BACK, LOOKING FORWARD...

ANALITA SETH CHATS WITH SONNALLI SEYGALL, WHO LOOKS BACK ON HER 10-YEAR-LONG CAREER WITH AFFECTION

- ANALITA SETH

Sonnalli Seygall has completed 10 years in showbiz. Debutantes like to play safe but she started off her career playing a grey-shaded character in Pyaar Ka Punchnama (PKP, 2011). She’s always gone for something different in the last decade. And while all of her choices might not have fructified, she still stands by them. She was a model before getting into films and can still be seen in a lot of ads. She begins by saying, “I always wanted to be a part of Miss India. I wasn’t inclined towards acting but I was sure I wanted to be a model. Acting did not fascinate me.” She got noticed by filmmakers after taking part in the contest and signed her first film in 2010. “My friends always said I’d go to Bollywood. Maybe I too felt it deep down but never took it seriously. I only gave it a thought when I started getting offers,” she reveals.

She still remembers her audition for PKP. She was one of the last girls to audition for the film and thought she’d not get the film. They had two rounds of auditions and she recalls reading out her part in front of director Luv Ranjan. “I did two rounds of auditions on the same day. One was a solo reading and in another I was reading with Raayo S. Bakhirta, who was later cast opposite me. Suddenly, they were discussing money with me and I thought it was all happening too fast.” She called up her mother first, as she wasn’t sure what to do. Her mother told her to just trust herself and go with the flow. Sonnalli did just that and it proved to be the best decision of her life, as the film proved to be a sleeper hit.