Exclusive! Highway Love star Gayatri Bhardwaj: With time, women are projected in a more realistic manner and I love that change

Model turned actress Gayatri Bhardwaj – who plays an upfront, empowered, and relatable girl in Amazon miniTV’s Highway Love, breaks the idea of being a damsel in distress in her latest web series. In an exclusive conversation with OTTplay, she opens up on her character, why she finds the changing image of women in cinema is here to stay, and more. Read on…

The web series Highway Love revolves around two youngsters, poles apart by nature, united by love. Asked if she can watch her character from a distance now that the show is receiving a lot of love since its release on June 16, Gayatri told OTTplay, "Yes I think now I can and as an audience when I watch the show, I discover so many things about the character that I couldn't when I was filming it.”

She explains, “Then I was mostly following the script and what the director asked me to do. Now I feel that she is more relatable than before. Inaaya is so impulsive and bold at the same time, I like her attitude that no matter what is coming her way, she has that attitude of 'dekh lenge'. I love that! In fact, in many situations, I would love to have a friend like Inaaya in real life. She is so upfront and can be a protector too. For instance, I did not know how to change the tyre and had to learn it to play Inayaa. So, it is better to have a friend like her who is bold and upfront in every situation, especially on a road trip."

It was refreshing to see how her character is written in the show and Gayatri said that such change is here to stay as the audience is more interested to watch a girl who is empowered and relatable rather than a damsel in distress.

"I think with time, women are projected in a more realistic manner and I love that change. There was a stereotype attached to female characters, a girl driving the car is not shown that often in films and shows, for instance. Now it is quite normalised,” she said.

“But I also feel it has a lot to do with how society has changed over the period and women have taken over that power, breaking the stereotype in real life too. So, as an audience also women want to watch those characters on-screen and that is why relatability has taken center stage. I would say, that is one of the reasons for girls to be an actress in the present time where roles are written with so much variety, highlighting different characteristics of their personality and not limited to a damsel in distress," concluded the actress who will be seen in the upcoming Ravi Teja starrer Telugu film Tiger Nageswara Rao.