The young actress who impressed us so much in the role of the young Michelle McNally in Black with Amitabh Bachchan and Rani Mukherji, for which she won a Best Supporting Actress award, is back in her second big movie role, Sikander, and she’s still only fourteen.
Set amidst the turbulence of the political situation in Kashmir, Sikander is a tragedy that stars a young and impressive Parzan Dastur in the pivotal role and also features the actor currently on a high in his career, R Madhavan. How does Ayesha feel about her new role? “When I was offered the role for Sikandar, I was extremely excited because I had not done a film for so long,” she explains, “After shooting Black, I was at home and continuing the usual routine; going to school, riding my beautiful horses and being just me. Even now, I don’t know how I got into the movie world. I have never had any acting classes or auditions in my life. Some people may call it destiny.”
Sikander was premiered at the 7th Indian Film Festival in Los Angeles and is set to hit the festival circuit whilst waiting for a release date in India, hampered by the current distribution dispute. The director Piyush Jha says the whole movie was filmed in beautiful Kashmir. “We were there for about two months,” he explains, “The ground work took us about 10-15 days to complete and we shot for 35 days. We faced no problems at all. The locals were very welcoming and hospitable and made us feel very comfortable. They want more cinema crews to shoot movies in their beautiful land.”
