Mrunal Thakur: Being on your own is daunting yet empowering

Mrunal Thakur

Despite breaking out with a powerful performance in Love Sonia (2018), it has been an uphill journey for Mrunal Thakur in Bollywood. Not that she is complaining - she has been patient and prudent, choosing the best of the offers coming her way. Two years into the industry, the actor is now sitting pretty with five projects in her kitty, including the Shahid Kapoor-starrer Jersey. "We have a 25-day schedule lined up. I will travel to Chandigarh and Dehradun soon," she says.

If Mrunal Thakur - who had become a household name with Kumkum Bhagya - made a successful switch from television to movies, she also skilfully shifted gears from indie cinema to mainstream offerings. The coming months will see her headline Toofan opposite Farhan Akhtar, the Thadam remake with Sidharth Malhotra, Aankh Micholi with Abhimanyu Dassani, and Pippa with Ishaan Khatter and Priyanshu Painyuli.

Ask her what posed the biggest challenge to cracking Bollywood, and she says, "It was to get a debut film, which would showcase my acting skills. It wasn't easy to convince director Tabrez Noorani [that I would be able to pull the role off]. Once Love Sonia started doing the festival rounds, it helped me bag film auditions. When you don't have a godfather, you are on your own. That is the most daunting, and yet, the most empowering feeling. I was scared, but it also made me go by my gut feeling more often. I focussed on good stories rather than screen space. To me, it matters who I am collaborating with. So when a Nikkhil Advani or a Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra offers something, I take the plunge."

Thakur with Jersey co-star Kapoor

Point out that her last release, Batla House, was over a year ago and she reasons that the pandemic has brought the industry to a slowdown. "After Batla House, I wanted the world to see more of my work. We were shooting Jersey when the lockdown was announced. During the stay-at-home period, I read many scripts and spoke to potential collaborators. With lesser noise around, I was deciding better, and signed some brilliant projects. I also lost films, but eventually, good work brings in better work."

Also read: Mrunal Thakur: Never felt like an outsider, had a mentor in Ekta Kapoor, Karan Johar guided me

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