"Music and singing have been major parts of my being since I was three years old. It's just that acting has been my sole focus ever since I signed my first film. Music has been on the backburner for all these years," Manjari told .
"I have been silently working on it all this while in my free time. I've been training in classical music on and off since childhood. For the last couple of years, I have been training in music under Mrs. Sucheta Bhattacharjee."
Manjari has also recorded two original singles with some "very talented composer friends of mine which I'm pitching to music labels. I will share it with my lovely audience soon enough".
She is now seen as the lead actress of "Barot House", a new ZEE5 original film. The focus of the gripping thriller is mostly on father and son. On what made her take up the web film, she said: "The script of the film. The moment I heard it's based on a true story and I read about the incident, I knew I had to be a part of it."
Another reason she wanted to work in the film was its director Bugs Bhargava.
"As soon as I met Bugs, our director, and the way he narrated a couple of scenes to me, I immediately knew this is a director I want to be guided by on a film. Bugs' vision was phenomenal," said Manjari.
"I'd love working on films focused on my character, but that's not the criteria on which I choose my projects. I knew 'Barot House' is mostly focused on father and son, but a story like this would never be complete without showing the catharsis of the mother. I saw the strength in the character of Bhavana Barot, an opportunity to push myself as an actress in probably the most complex character I've played till date, while being a part of a worthwhile project."
The roles was physically and mentally exhausting for her.
"This is a film where we had to constantly remain in the zone of the emotion. This film needed me to revisit certain emotional memories which I never wanted to go back to. I had made a playlist of some really blue songs and instrumentals playing constantly," she said.
She took up the role of a mother for the project and she has no fear of getting typecast.
"Times have really changed now, so has our industry, our audience and our filmmakers. I feel extremely lucky that I'm in this industry at a time where the new-age filmmakers are no longer limited in their vision while casting.
"Just because you have played a particular kind of role, doesn't mean that they will cast you only in that. Besides, it will be so boring for the audience to keep watching a particular actor in same kind of roles. The only thing that has happened after playing this role is that I have got an opportunity to show my range as an actor.
"I sincerely hope and look forward to being offered more challenging, interesting and complex characters to chew on."
( With inputs from IANS )