EXCLUSIVE! Mili star Janhvi Kapoor: 'I want to push myself tirelessly to become the best actress that I can be'

Janhvi Kapoor is much more than Sridevi’s daughter. From her debut in Dhadak in 2017, she has worked diligently towards building her own identity as an actress. Now in Mili, Janhvi has given a performance that would have made her legendary mother proud. Confident and hardworking Janhvi speaks to Firstpost on why she thinks she is more than a chip off the block and what working on Mili has taught her. Mili must have been a huge challenge both physically and emotionally. Describe some of these please The freezer portions of the story were quite a challenge. They had built a freezer, especially for me to shoot in. The temperature was minus-15 degrees at all times, sometimes it would go up to minus-18. We were actually supposed to shoot for nine days in the freezer. I fell sick repeatedly, so did my director Mathu Sir (Mathukutty Xavier). The shooting had to be extended repeatedly. Our pace got substantially slackened. Shooting in the cold freezer made us feel suffocated.

All this doesn’t sound easy This shooting was no picnic. But being in an actual freezer made my job easier. Mathu Sir would come on the set and say, ‘Okay Mili will today try to keep herself warm. These are her tools and this the tape, and there is the camera.’ And then he would have a 15-minute take and the sense of urgency and desperation to wrap my hands in that cellophane was very real. We shot all the sequences in the freezer in chronology. All the emotions were real. It is both a father-daughter bonding drama and a survival story, which was more challenging to you? Having Manoj Sir play my father was a blessing. He is a phenomenal actor. I am grateful to him. I’ve learnt so much from him. My relationship with Manoj Sir in the film was a lot like my relationship with my own Dad. So playing the daughter was easy. It was the survival story in the freezer that took the life out of me. Working with the wonderful Manoj Pahwa did you miss your own father in the role? I missed my father on the sets. My relationship with him is reflected in bits and pieces of my relationship with Pankaj Sir( Tripathi) in Gunjan Saxena and in Mili. But I don’t think I could have got a better father than Manoj Sir in _Mili_ . Did you see the original film? What did you think of Anna Ben in the original? I saw bits and pieces of the original. I was ready to just go through it and say no. I didn’t want to do another remake. But then I saw how moved my father was by the material and what a gifted director Mathu Sir was. I just had to do it. I thought Anna was phenomenal in Helen. It is a performance that will be remembered for generations, so sensitive simple real. I’ve great respect for what she has done in Helen, now more so since I know how tough it is. Do you get disheartened when after all that hard work all you get to hear is negative comment? Honestly, if I sensed the negativity I would be disheartened. But that’s not what I am sensing, at least from the people who have seen it. It’s another discussion that getting people to come and see films in theatres is becoming a bit of a struggle. I know what I’ve given to this film. It wasn’t easy. It will get its due. The negative comments don’t affect me. I am willing to work hard. And no one can take the hard work away from me. The agenda-driven headlines don’t affect me. Having said that, I am willing to improve on myself. I want to push myself tirelessly to become the best actress that I can be. Subhash K Jha is a Patna-based film critic who has been writing about Bollywood for long enough to know the industry inside out. He tweets at @SubhashK_Jha. Read all the  Latest News ,  Trending News ,  Cricket News ,  Bollywood News ,  India News  and  Entertainment News  here. Follow us on  Facebook,  Twitter and  Instagram.