Exclusive! Highway Love actress Gayatri Bhardwaj: I love the attention and fame I’m getting from social media

After starting her career as a model and winning a few beauty pageants, Gayatri Bhardwaj made her acting debut with the web series Dhindora, alongside Bhuvan Bam in 2021. Since then the actress appeared in shows like Ittu Si Baat, Ishq Express, and the most recent one, Highway Love.

With a social media following of about 726k followers (and counting), the actress likes to keep her fans updated with the latest goings on in her life. In an exclusive conversation with OTTplay, she was asked about the importance of maintaining and engaging with social media followers and whether it has any role to play in order to bag big projects.

Gayatri told OTTplay, "Well, it is the business that we are in right now where the social media presence has become a part of the deal. Especially for actors, we are living in a social media era where you have to make your presence felt because that is the parameter of your popularity. Every person is using social media so the best way to reach every single audience member is, through social media. I see no reason not to use that platform to create and maintain visibility as an actor or content creator."

However, it is sad to observe how many talented actors and those who’ve taken training in acting, at times miss out on opportunities due to the lack of popularity and number of followers on social media. On the other hand, the casting team of any project prefers to collaborate with those who can pull the audience since they are already popular because of them being influential on social media. Perhaps that is one of the reasons why in the recent past we have seen some of the prominent social media influencers turning into actors and bagging big projects.

Apart from Gayatri - Prajakta Koli, Bhuvan Bam, Kushal Kapila, Sahil Khattar, and Mallika Dua are a few such content creators who have managed to bag big projects in films and web series in the recent past.

Asked to share her opinion on the matter, Gayatri explained, "I know that there are actors who are trained from reputed acting schools, and at times, they have that arrogance that they want to remain an actor and not become a social media influencer. I do not blame them though because they have worked so hard on their craft to become the performing artist that they are...and yes, it is sad that at times they are losing out on projects to those youngsters who have millions of followers on Instagram. But the fact of the matter is, we have to be an all-rounder. We have to move ahead with time and the generation we are a part of. I feel like, everybody needs to do social media and it has become a part of who we are as a personality."

The budding actress also feels that the advantage of using social media is also that it offered many outsiders like herself to navigate the film industry that earlier was too hard to crack.

"Back in the day things were different but now, especially if you do not come from a film family, the way to build your audience is, through social media. Ranbir Kapoor is still not on social media, officially but that is not affecting him to bag some of the fantastic projects. Having said that, I as Gayatri, love the attention and fame I am getting from social media," she concluded.

The actress will soon be making her debut in Telugu cinema and share screen space with Ravi Teja for Tiger Nageswara Rao. In the meantime, the web series Highway Love, also starring Ritvik Sahore, is streaming on Amazon miniTV.