Originally posted by: hypnotoad
Maya has had some good scenes like you said. Her silent scenes are sometimes better than her spoken scenes I feel. Her bidai scene when she is at the car and sees her father had no lines but she did it very well. Maya's one issue in SMD is that her dialogue delivery is off -though I dunno if it's deliberate. It's very slow and the way she breaks up even short standard sentences and the pauses in between are really irritating tbh.
Also, while Maya is a competent enough actress, the ability to convey complex, conflicting, multi-layered emotions is not her forte. She can play one emotion well at a time. She can act vulnerable in one scene and angry in the next one but she cannot give angry and vulnerable simultaneously. In contrast, you can see Wahaj displaying a range of emotions in just one scene and has the ability to communicate multiple emotions through one look. Some actors can elevate a weak scene with their performance but Maya (like Haseeb) needs a well-written scene to deliver a good performance.
Issues like OTT breathy acting I won't just lay at Maya's feet because otherwise good actors are acting same here, so it could just be the director's brief.