‘I choose movies that appeal to my heart’: Rani Mukerji

With her last year’s release, Hichki, a socially-relevant film in which she essayed a teacher with Tourette Syndrome, Rani Mukerji wowed critics and audiences alike and also delivered a commercial success in India and overseas. Now, her upcoming film, Mardaani 2, which is a sequel to her 2014 hit cop thriller, Mardaani, is said to shock audiences with its hard-hitting subject.

‘Grateful and humbled’ that Hichki resonated with cinegoers in India, China and worldwide, the actress talks about how she is choosing stories that are starting social conversations and also setting the cash registers ringing.  “I’m picking films that appeal to my heart, that appeal to me as an actor. I think it’s my good fortune that I’ve been able to select scripts out of the several ones that I’ve got and I’m fortunate that directors and writers have thought of me to play these characters,” she says, adding, “I’ve been lucky to have received the right script at the right time. I have enjoyed telling a story to the audience because if we are making a socially-relevant film, we are making it for them.”

Incidentally, not many were familiar with Tourette Syndrome until Hichki released. Rani points out that with Mardaani, the idea was to make the people aware about the menace of child-trafficking. Reiterating that it is is rampant around us and ‘we need to keep our eyes and ears open and protect our children’, she says, “I think these things are a learning for me as well when I get to read scripts. In Mardaani 2, we will again tackle a subject that will be shocking for viewers. It will show something that is extremely real and alarming to audiences and make them aware of what’s happening in and around our lives.”