A fast-moving filmography, early recognition and plenty more still on the wishlist.

A few years ago, Nayan Sarika was still imagining a life outside cinema. Today, she has a Filmfare trophy, a growing Telugu filmography and a wishlist that includes some of the industry’s biggest filmmakers. What makes the journey interesting, though, is how little of it has followed a fixed plan.

There were, however, early signs that performing fascinated her. As a child, she remembers watching actors on television and wondering how she could get “inside the TV” too. She would wrap her mother’s dupatta like a saree, dance and enact characters she had watched on screen. Her grandmother encouraged the possibility of acting; her mother, understandably, preferred that she concentrate on her studies.

The practical plan was law.

Nayan was in Class 12 and preparing for that path when a post-board-exam holiday at her aunt’s home led to an impromptu photoshoot and, eventually, cinema. “That was the turning point of my life,” she says.

Since then, the pace has barely slowed. Gam Gam Ganesha, Aay, KA, Vishnu Vinyasam and Raakaasa have placed her in noticeably different worlds, something she seems keen to continue rather than settle into one comfortable lane.

LEARNING ON THE GO

Telugu cinema also meant learning a new city and a new language at the same time. Born and raised in Solapur, Nayan had never visited Hyderabad before her first project.

Telugu did not come naturally either, but there were no formal lessons. She simply picked it up from staff, co-stars, crew and conversations across different sets.

Interestingly, one of her earliest introductions to her new surroundings came not through language, but food.

“The first cultural shift that I got was through food,” she says. Working with different actors introduced her to flavours that were completely new to her. Fish pulusu remains one particularly vivid memory, while ragi mudde with natu kodi has become an all-time favourite. Hyderabad, meanwhile, has gradually turned into what she calls her “second home.”

Her approach to scripts is similarly instinctive. Character comes first, followed by the scope to perform and the story itself.

“I want to give my audience something fresh every time,” she says. “When I listen to a script, I listen to it from the audience’s point of view. If I was sitting in the theatre, would I enjoy it?”

That thinking has already taken her across different genres in a relatively short career. She is less interested in repeating what has worked than in finding a character that gives her something new to do.

WHEN THE AUDIENCE FINDS YOU

One measure of how quickly things have changed arrived through Raakaasa.

Nayan remembers the team hoping the film would succeed but being unprepared for the scale of its reception. During theatre visits, she saw audiences stretching from elderly viewers to very young children, with entire families filling halls.

Then recognition followed her somewhere she did not expect it: home.

Back in Solapur during a break from promotions, Nayan went bowling with childhood friends. A woman approached and asked whether she was the actress from Raakaasa.

“I was surprised hearing that. Because how are people here coming to know about me? And how are they recognising me?”

For someone who describes herself as a homebody and says relatively few people in her hometown knew about her work, the encounter landed differently. “That made me really happy. And just put that sense in me that, look how far you’ve come.”

The Filmfare trophy offered another version of that feeling.

She remembers watching the awards on television with her family long before she imagined taking home the familiar black statuette herself. Receiving the Best Debut award was, she says, a dream come true.

Curiously, she does not think the award dramatically altered her day-to-day professional life. What changed was something more internal: it strengthened her belief that ambitious dreams could become tangible through work.

For audiences, the recognition may have seemed to arrive quickly. From her perspective, it carried the accumulated weight of the work that preceded it—starting with web series, long shoots and sleepless nights.

“Filmfare is not a small thing,” she says. “I’m just grateful, that’s all.”

AWAY FROM THE SET

That willingness to switch things up extends to the women she plays. Manisha in Vishnu Vinyasam may be mature and guarded, but Nayan says the two are “completely opposite characters.”

Where Manisha is a “hard shell to crack”, Nayan describes herself as someone who faces struggles head-on without allowing them to define her personality.

“I don’t make stress the centre of my life or the centre of my existence. I just keep it aside. I live in the moment.”

She likes laughing loudly with people she loves, having fun and seeking out adventure. And there is one thing she hopes success never changes.

“No matter the fame or success I earn, I want people around me to feel safe and comfortable sharing their thoughts and speaking their hearts out with no filters,” she says. She wants to remain, as she puts it, a “safe space” for everyone from loved ones to strangers—and, above all, stay grounded.

Her interests away from cinema are increasingly eclectic. She has always been a reader, particularly of fiction, but lately her curiosity has shifted towards non-fiction: the universe, the workings of the human brain and finance.

She paints in her free time and has recently become intrigued by air-dry clay after discovering it on Instagram. Pottery and horse riding are both on the learn-someday list, while her growing interest in decorating spaces has made her curious about interior design too.

It is less one hobby than a general appetite for trying things she has not done before.

Travel offers another outlet. Give her two completely free weeks and she would head for the mountains.

The first half, she imagines, would be filled with exploring and adventure. The second would deliberately slow down—time to disappear from the noise and “escape the world for a while.”

Chandratal Lake currently sits on her bucket list. More broadly, her criterion is uncomplicated: “Any place that has mountains, I’d love to go.”

WHAT’S ON THE WISHLIST?

On screen, a proper rom-com is high on it. So are action and suspense thrillers. After moving through comedy, thrillers, rural settings, romance and horror-comedy, she wants the next few years to keep expanding rather than narrowing the possibilities.

And when it comes to directors, S.S. Rajamouli, Sukumar and Prashanth Neel are names she would happily say yes to. There is one ambition she makes particularly specific: if the conversation were repeated three years from now, she would love to be able to say she had worked as a heroine in a Sukumar film.

A TASTE OF HYDERABAD

On a rare day off in the city, Nayan keeps things simple.

Chai stop: Nilofer jaggery tea with maska bun
 Forever favourite: Panchakattu dosa
 Biryani pick: Chicken biryani from Telangana Spice Kitchen

There is a little history attached to the chai stop too: during late-night Raakaasa promotions and theatre visits, Nayan and the team would head to Nilofer for tea and maska bun after work.

For now, the career is still gathering shape, and perhaps that suits Nayan best. The first few years have already taken her somewhere she had not planned to be. She seems quite happy letting the next role surprise her too.

What she does know is that she wants more films, more creative collaborators and bigger challenges—without losing the version of herself who can return home, spend time with old friends, paint, read, plan a trip to the mountains and remain accessible to the people around her.

The destination may still be unclear. The wishlist certainly isn’t.