Nia Sharma recalls fight with Jamai 2.0 co-star Ravi Dubey: ‘Channel had to intervene’

Ravi Dubey and Nia Sharma sucked audiences into the television show Jamai Raja with their undeniable chemistry. The show, which went on air in 2014 and ended after a successful three-year run, returned with a digital spin-off titled Jamai 2.0 in 2019.

Ahead of the release of the second season of Jamai 2.0, Nia got candid about what to expect from the show, performing intimate scenes and her fallout with Ravi.

Nia said that with Jamai 2.0 season 2, “The idea was to make it hotter, more lavish, more glossy, and I think we have pretty much succeeded in that. It is a very well-thought-out plan to revamp SidNi (what their characters, Siddharth and Roshni, are lovingly called by fans). Ravi and I have had our own journey of grooming on the show.”

Jamai 2.0 is a lot bolder in content than Jamai Raja but Nia was not in the least hesitant about repelling the original fans of the show. “I have never been apprehensive of anything in life, especially when it comes to getting bold on-screen. Why make such a fuss out of things like that? I have spent a considerable amount of time on TV playing demure roles, the nice girl, and then, I have very smoothly transitioned to the OTT platforms,” she said.

When Nia made her digital debut in 2017 with Twisted, the web space was still growing, and ‘no one expected a girl from TV to come and do it’. “There were so many eyeballs that I kissed a girl, I made out on screen, I dressed a certain way… The entire brouhaha about the show Twisted was so much that nobody could take ekdum se hua kya (what suddenly happened). Now, we have gone overboard and OTT is just another term that we use, it is taking over films and TV,” she said.

"I know my professional limits, I know what I can do on the screen and if given an opportunity, I would do complete justice to whatever I have been given to do, but obviously, keeping the classiness alive. Nothing should come across as cheap or vulgar. Being bold on-screen is just going out there and doing the scenes you are getting an opportunity to do, which you might not have been able to perform on TV. That’s how I look at it and I have been pretty comfortable doing what I have been doing,” she added.

Nia also opened up about her infamous fallout with Ravi, several years ago. Things got so bad between them that they were not even on talking terms for more than a year. “I was 23 back then. I had not come across someone who was just so into their scenes and would rehearse so much. Ravi and I had very different ways of working, maybe that was something that hit me, due to which we kind of did not talk,” she said.

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“Things escalated because we stopped talking. Everything we would do would irritate each other. It went to a point that we were ready to kill each other, it was that bad a situation on the set. I would hate to go on the set because I had to see his face and I am sure he felt the same way. (laughs) The channel had to intervene and take us on a conference call to tell us, ‘Guys, the show is doing amazingly well but whatever you guys are up to, it is showing on screen, so please get over that and be professional enough.’ That was the situation and from there, I think we have gone to and fro on many things. Our animosity dissolved, we became better and better friends, and now we are the thickest. Now, it is like a family thing,” she added.

The grapevine is abuzz with rumours that Nia is in a relationship with her Twisted co-star Rrahul Sudhir. However, when asked about it, she chose to neither confirm nor deny the news. “Honestly, my life is completely out there. There is nothing that I do not post on Instagram. But if there is something that is not there, maybe I don’t want to talk about it or genuinely don’t see a point in bringing it out in front of the world. Not that I will say I don’t know Rrahul; of course, he is my friend. But I choose not to comment on this. If I wanted to, it would be right there on Instagram,” she said.

Jamai 2.0 season 2 premieres this Friday (February 26) on Zee5.