Riya Sharma of 'Pinjara...' on the harsh criticism she received & how it affected her

Pinjara Khubsurti Ka has been an absolute revelation lately where the show allured a loyal audience ever since it's launch. The show recently enabled a massive leap leading to reincarnation but the leading pair - Sahil Uppal and Riya Sharma have stayed on but with new avatars.

But as Mayura, Sharma has had to deal with a lot of hatred, negative criticism when she joined the show. In fact, the impact of this negativity was so much that the actor starred getting panic and anxiety attacks, but she did manage to turn things later and is now appreciated.

Talking about it with ETimes TV, Sharma said, "Obviously, it has not been all love in the journey of playing Mayura. Initially, the journey was very tough for me because I joined the show during the pandemic last year and the character was such that she is a very pretty girl so there was a lot of criticism. I appreciated the criticism and took it positively. But there were few things that affected me mentally and during that time my co-actor supported me very much. My co-stars Sahil, my dadi, Anandita ji all of them supported me."

Talking about the criticism on length, she said, "In the beginning I had become a little conscious of myself because the character briefing that I had got was that the girl Mayura was very beautiful and I felt that she is not me and I am not that girl. I became very conscious and I stopped liking myself because of it and then I went on social media and read comments on my promo. I don’t know why I did it but once I was reading those comments and there were people who were saying ‘who did you cast’, ‘the casting is wrong’, they would say that ‘the show says that she is the most beautiful girl’ but she is not. ‘ You could have cast someone else’ and they were taking names of other popular actresses. I lost all my confidence and everything after reading them. I came here on set and would be just with myself and not talk to anyone. I had become very negative. I would go home after pack-up and cry that this is not me and I don’t want to do this, this is not for me. But my creative team would tell me to relax and say that they have taken the right decision and made it after a lot of thinking and it is the right decision. Because of all this I was not able to get into my character well and I would say a few lines like my character would praise her beauty and I would find it absurd that how can I praise myself. I would feel that I am not that beautiful. So, I was in a very negative state and my co-stars helped me a lot. They would come to me and ask me to join for lunch and now we share a great bond."

Further adding, she said, "The comments broke my heart and I was shattered and I used to get panic attacks and suffered from anxiety. I was alone here in Mumbai as I don’t live with my parents, I am from Nagpur. I would hide these things from them because I didn’t want them to get worried or upset because of me. I had got very alone here and there were these negative comments. But things changed and I started getting good feedback and because of those positive people, my fans who loved me, I kind of became a balanced person. These positive comments would divert my attention from negative things. But trust me it was not easy and at one point I felt I just cannot do this, I just don’t want to do this. Our producer believed in me."