Saumya Uniyal is an actress from Dehradun who plays Charu, the best friend of the lead character Dhara, in the Netflix series Matargashti, which premiered on 21 October 2026. She made her screen debut in 2024 in TVF’s school comedy Sisterhood after about two years of auditions.
Filmibeat lists her other credits as Kis Kisko Pyaar Karoon 2, Tum Mere Ho and Waiting Hai. In interviews after the Netflix release, she described landing Charu as the fulfilment of a wish she had written in a diary.
- Known for: Charu in Matargashti (Netflix, 2026); Kiara in Sisterhood (2024)
- From: Dehradun, Uttarakhand
- Education: Convent of Jesus and Mary; graduate of MCM DAV College, Chandigarh
- Before acting: content writer and online sketches
Who is Saumya Uniyal?
Saumya Uniyal is a Dehradun actress best known for playing Charu in Netflix’s Matargashti. She studied at the Convent of Jesus and Mary and graduated from MCM DAV College in Chandigarh, the Garhwal Post reported in June 2024.
After college she worked as a content writer and appeared in online sketches. She took acting workshops and auditioned for close to two years, through continuous rejections, before her first break, the paper reported. It wrote that she found her purpose as an actor during the lockdown.
She has spoken openly about being a shy student. “I used to have massive stage fright but would somehow manage to go on stage when asked,” she told the paper, adding that the one or two times she acted on a school stage were “the most exhilarating feeling in the world”.
Matargashti and the role of Charu
Matargashti is a five-episode Hindi comedy-drama created by Siddhant Chavan, according to Netflix’s listing as reported by Kerala TV. It is set in Lucknow and follows Dhara (Adrija Sinha), a bookish young woman who resents her father, Prakash (Rajesh Kumar), for sending her away after her mother’s death.
Charu is Dhara’s best friend and co-conspirator. Teased by classmates for being prudes, the two set out to find Dhara a boyfriend through college fests and dating apps, while her worried father follows them and tries to block every plan, The Hollywood Reporter India wrote in its review. The episodes each run under 25 minutes, and the same review called the series warm and watchable.
Saumya has said the character is easy to misjudge. “Charu can be very easily misunderstood if you look at her from the surface. Some parents might even call her the ‘buri sangat’ they warn you about,” she told IANS. She described Charu as protective and warm, and said the quality she wished she shared was “the confidence and fierceness with which she carries herself”.
The diary she wrote before the role
Saumya believes she manifested the part. “I actually had a diary where I had written that I wanted to book a series. I wrote in detail, and surprisingly, that was the only point I wrote about in detail,” she told Filmibeat in October 2026. The entry described the kind of role it would be. It even set out the episode length.
She said she did not prepare in any special way for Charu, because the show’s themes of generational difference, first attraction and the fight for personal independence were “a part of my childhood”. She called Adrija Sinha “like a little sister” after they clicked at the costume trials, and said she had looked up to the actor who plays Dhara’s father for years. IANS and Filmibeat named him as Rajesh Sharma in their write-ups, while the reviews and Netflix’s listing credit Rajesh Kumar in the role.
What viewers said about Matargashti
Viewer response has been mixed but mostly kind. Under a Reddit post about the release, one viewer who binged the series wrote:
“When I began, I expected to watch it gradually, but it was so compelling that I completed it in a single night. We need more mini web series on Netflix along the lines of what TVF produces.”
– r/IndianOTTbestof, October 2026 (3 upvotes)
Others under the same post found the story predictable, and one single father said he wanted more from the ending.
Earlier work
Her screen debut came in Sisterhood, a five-episode TVF series on Amazon miniTV set in an all-girls convent school in Mumbai. She played Kiara, a classmate who competes with Zoya for the spots of class topper and monitor and keeps trying to get the lead group into trouble. Abstract AF’s review called Kiara the show’s “biggest villain”, while noting there was “no real malevolence at play”.
Filmibeat also credits her with Kis Kisko Pyaar Karoon 2, Waiting Hai and the 2026 film Tum Mere Ho, which starred Gurmeet Choudhary and Isha Malviya. The reports cited here did not describe her roles in those projects.
Saumya Uniyal: quick answers
Who plays Charu in Matargashti?
Saumya Uniyal plays Charu, the best friend of Dhara (Adrija Sinha), in the Netflix series Matargashti. The five-episode comedy-drama premiered on 21 October 2026.
Where is Saumya Uniyal from?
Saumya Uniyal is from Dehradun in Uttarakhand. She is an alumna of the Convent of Jesus and Mary and graduated from MCM DAV College in Chandigarh, according to the Garhwal Post.
What was Saumya Uniyal’s first show?
Her first screen role was Kiara in TVF’s Sisterhood on Amazon miniTV in 2024, a part she landed after almost two years of auditions, according to the Garhwal Post.
How old is Saumya Uniyal?
Saumya Uniyal’s birth date has not been published in the interviews and reviews cited here, so her exact age is not on record.
