2021 has been a rather eventful year for Mrunal Thakur. The actress had two successful releases – Toofan and Dhamaka – and she plans to end the year on a high as her next Jersey, starring Shahid Kapoor, hits the screens this Friday. A remake of the 2019 Telugu hit film of the same name, Mrunal is honest to say that she referred to the original film multiple times just to get her character right.
“It was really nice to have a film that I could refer as it gave me the knowledge to know what I need to do and what I don’t. Gowtam sir (Gowtam Tinnanuri, the director of the film) mentioned to me that there was no pressure to live up to the original character,” Mrunal says, adding, “I did not just read the script but also watched the original film a multiple times to understand the flow of the scenes. It is very rare that actors get a reference point and since I had one, I decided to take maximum advantage of it.”
Mrunal has worked in seven Hindi films so far. In five of them, she’s a wife or love interest. In an industry where it is common to typecast an actor or the fact that it is still male dominated, Mrunal has stood out with her performances. Talking about it, Mrunal reasons aloud, “Relationships are not going to change. I am going to play a girlfriend, wife, mother or a sister. I started with Love Sonia, one of the most unusual choices to debut with. Then came Super 30, which was a biopic. I did not play the wife but someone who was contributing to the success of Anand Kumar (the central character). In Batla House, she was a feisty woman in a relationship who had a voice of her own. In Toofan, my character kisses Farhan’s character and confesses her love. In Bollywood it is usually the other way round.”
She further explains, “When it comes to Dhamaka, she was so loyal to her profession and she was clear that if someone doesn’t respect her career, she is not ready to live with that person. When it comes to Jersey, which is set in the ’90s, I can’t think of any woman who would slap her husband like I do to Shahid’s character and be the breadwinner for the family. There are these unsubstantiated industry norms that I have worked hard to defy. I want to change the way writers write female characters.”
One of the toughest scenes that Mrunal shot for was the scene in which she slaps Shahid’s character. “I was really scared. I didn’t want to spoil his performance,” she confesses, adding, “The crescendo of the scene is something else. I was tense about kahin zyada na lag jaye (I shouldn’t overdo the output). But Shahid helped me in that scene a lot, by egging me on, ‘You need to slap me harder.’ We did a lot of retakes and the slap is real. We performed the scene in the initial four or five days of shooting. I was trying to find the rhythm in my character and this scene really got me going.”
At one of the promotion events, Thakur was spotted wearing a simple red shirt with black leather pants. To add to the fashion quotient, the actor decided to leave a few shirt buttons open, as she flaunted her well-toned body. But the actor was trolled on social media. But that has not deterred her as she says that these comments don’t matter.
“Let me tell you something, my midriff looked really good (laughs). It was actually how the shirt was styled where my midriff and bralet was supposed to be seen. I don’t know why people made an issue out of it. I got a lot of great compliments for it. I feel confident about my body and I will keep my buttons open as I don’t see any harm. People who are commenting on my unbuttoning, I would like to say this is my life and I would like to dress up the way I want to. I am enjoying these rounds of promotions as I am loving the fashion quotient that I haven’t really experienced before. I don’t want to be the one to wear ghagra choli. In fact when women wear ghagra choli, the midriff is visible in that too and that is fine. So I don’t really care about these hypocritical people.”
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