When she was 17 years old, she had accompanied a friend to an audition for Sharpe's Peril and landed a role in the BBC telefilm. In the period drama based on English soldier Richard Sharpe, Payal had played the role of a village girl, the daughter of a revolutionary freedom fighter from Bengal. Payal also starred in a Canadian film in which she played a school girl in love with her neighbour's servant.Since her parents disapproved of her decision to join films, during her college holidays, she ran away from her home in Calcutta and came to Mumbai. She joined Namit Kishore's acting academy where she met Chandra Sekhar Yeleti who offered her the lead role in his Prayanam opposite Manchu Manoj.Later she was seen in the Telugu films Mr. Rascal and Oosaravelli and the Kannada film Varshadhare.