Niki Walia explains why she prefers playing supporting characters

16 August,2026 09:55 AM IST |  Mumbai  |  IANS

Niki Walia explained why she opts for supporting roles despite playing the lead in 28 shows. She said supporting characters reflect real-life relationships and are more relatable to audiences. She also credited OTT for giving them greater visibility

Niki Walia. Pic/NIki`s Instagram


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Actress Niki Walia explained why she opts to do supporting roles.

Speaking exclusively to IANS, Niki said that she believes the audiences often find these characters more relatable, as they are the ones that help us move forward in life.

Niki told IANS, "In real life, you feel that you are the hero of your life. If you understand the situation in terms of the real life, you know that all the members of the family, your best friends, are the ones because of whom your life is moving forward. Like we give so much importance to them privately. Now in movies, in stories, this thing is at a soul level. To praise the other characters, to show them that, yes, just the main lead and hero is not enough. The car is running because of its four wheels."

During the conversation, Niki also shed light on the changing landscape in the entertainment sector and how it has now started to give more space to supporting actors to explore their full potential.

She further pointed out how the emergence of OTT has helped supporting actors gain more visibility.

"And as someone who has played the main lead in 28 shows, I am also doing supporting roles today. I do it because they are such important characters in our real life , which today's stories have finally started to show. So definitely, I think the relatability of the audience is more with those characters because they all understand that we don't do this heroism in our real life. So the real characters are our cousins, our aunts, our best friends. So definitely, the audience also relates more to these characters," she went on to add.

Best known for playing Dr. Simran Mathur in the show 'Astitva…Ek Prem Kahani', Niki has also been a part of many other prominent shows like 'Sea Hawks', 'Dil Sambhal Jaa Zara', and 'Puncch Beat', naming just a few.

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