Her Wikipedia page says she is an air hostess who became a TV actress and then ventured into films. When asked about the same, Neha Saxena gives a long suffering sigh and explains, “Actually this is a case of mistaken identity and a huge problem I am facing.
There is another actress with the same name who is a TV star and all my achievements have been credited to her profile with my photo, which I am trying to sort out! Be it Wikipedia, Instagram, Twitter or my social page, I am facing problems because of this mistaken identity and am not able to get a verified page.
Coincidentally, my namesake was an air hostess and I was one during my graduation time, so it adds to the confusion. As a solution, I was asked to change my name but I refused as my name has given me so much fame.”
Neha has acted in 15 films, a majority of them hits in Kannada and has also made a mark in Tamil, Telugu and even Tulu. She has also received a number of awards. The tall and lissome beauty will be stepping into Malayalam through Nithin Renji Panicker’s film Kasaba. Going by what she says about her entry to Malayalam, it seems like Neha has her own fairy god mother standing by with a magic wand to help her realise her dreams.
Neha narrates how her role materialised. “Whenever in Kerala, I used to see huge hoardings of a handsome man with a thick moustache with attitude in his eyes. Intrigued, I asked my driver who he was. After giving me a funny look, he replied it was superstar Mammootty. A sudden feeling occurred to me that I would act with him one day.” And the fairy god mother set to work. Soon Neha was called for a photo shoot with Mammootty for a magazine along with 20 other girls. Excited, Neha drove down from Bengalaru to Kochi only to see 70 other girls waiting but she did the shoot anyway. Little did she fathom that the photo would launch her Mollywood innings.
Neha caught the eye of the makers and when she finally got the call for Kasaba, it left her breathless. She exults, “I could not eat for two days because I was so happy being cast opposite Mammootty. When I first met Mammukka in his caravan, I pinched myself to see if I was dreaming. Mammukka spoke to me, but the words were going above my head because I was just looking at him and my heart was pounding.” Though she was nervous while the shoot, he put her completely at ease. Neha plays a character called Susan who lives in a brothel and meets Mammootty’s character. Neha has only good words to say about Mollywood. “Here it is about good stories, less makeup and about not exploiting a girl. It is about good cinema and I want to do more films here!”
A graduate in aviation and hotel management and a child raised by a single parent after her father passed away before her birth, career was always Neha’s priority. She got into the hotel industry and went to work in International hotels and is still working for Mahindra Holidays in Bengalaru. Initially, she did a lot of modelling works while trying her hand in films, but getting a break in films was not as rosy as it seemed.
While most actresses tend to shy away from speaking about casting couch, Neha has no such qualms and reveals, “I used to get selected for roles but it had a rider in the form of the casting couch. I was not interested in that and my belief was that I had talent and I was not that desperate to get into the industry. But I began to have a wrong impression about the industry because of this and also because I did not have a financial or an emotional backup. I did not want to trouble my mom with my worries, so I stood strong and faced it all by myself. I believe that what has to come to me would eventually find me.” And it did! As luck would have it, she was discovered by a producer while making a presentation to a client in a coffee shop and what followed is 15 films across the industries.
