In the seven years since foraying into films with Dabangg 3 (2019), Saiee M Manjrekar has straddled Hindi and Telugu cinema. Fronting director Ram Vamsi Krishna’s The India House, a bilingual movie, feels like a natural progression to the actor. “Shooting a film simultaneously in Hindi and Telugu is both exciting and challenging because you are switching languages and cultural nuances. It requires immense focus and preparation, but it also sharpens you as an actor,” she said.

The film marks Ram Charan’s maiden production

Featuring in the bilingual offering, Major (2022), helped Manjrekar as she joined the Anupam Kher and Nikhil Siddhartha-led period drama. Talking about her prep for the film that is set in 1905, she said, “Having done Major earlier, I felt a sense of familiarity with the process. But every film teaches you something new. Here, the era is specific and the emotions are put in such a nuanced way. What I love about such projects is how cinema becomes a shared language. On set, you have people from different backgrounds coming together to tell one story.”