Mom wanted me to do a film like Sairat, says Janhvi Kapoor

IT WAS AN emotional moment for Janhvi Kapoor to begin the promotions of her Bollywood debut Dhadak, the Hindi language adaptation of the Marathi hit Sairat, a film, she says her mother Sridevi wanted her to be a part of. Directed by Shashank Khaitan, Dhadak is the official adaptation of Nagraj Manjule’s critically-acclaimed film and is produced by Karan Johar.

Janhvi’s debut comes a few months after her Sridevi’s sudden death at the age of 54 in February.

“I saw Sairat with mom at home and I remember telling her ‘I wish that this was my first film and I could do something like it’. Me and mom had this big discussion on how she wanted a role like this for me and then Karan called and it happened,” Janhvi said.

While the original film featured Rinku Rajguru and Akash Thosar, the adaptation will see Janhvi and Ishaan Khatter as young lovers. Janhvi said she has treated her character differently from the one in Sairat.

“What Rinku did with that character, I don’t think any other actor can even touch it. But my character is different. I tried portraying my character with a lot of honesty right from the beginning,” she said. Ishaan, who made his debut with Majid Majidi’s India-based film Beyond the Clouds, said he is thrilled to be a part of Sairat. “When I saw the (original) film, I was completely taken in. It took me a while to register that I will be doing this. When we saw the film once, Shashank had told us not to watch it again because then we would get influenced to some extent. So we took a fresh approach and prepared,” he added.

Dhadak is scheduled to release on July 20.

I saw Sairat with mom at home and I remember telling her ‘I wish that this was my first film and I could do something like it’.” Jahnvi Kapoor