Sometimes talent is not the only factor; you need to be at the right place, at the right time. Janki Bodiwala, who plays a cop in Rani Mukerji’s Mardaani 3, will vouch for this. The actor was on a day trip to Mumbai and it surprisingly ended with her bagging the cop fare.

“I had gone to Mumbai for some other work. That very day, I got a call from Shanoo ma’am [Sharma, casting director], who asked me to audition for a part. I went [to YRF Studios], she helped me prepare, and then auditioned me. Later, when I was returning to Ahmedabad, she called and said that the [makers] had liked me and wanted me to come back. I thought to myself, ‘I had gone for some other work and now I’m doing a YRF film’,” she marvels, still surprised at how it all panned out.

Janki Bodiwala

If Bodiwala starred with Ajay Devgn in her maiden Bollywood film Shaitaan (2024), her second outing saw her rub shoulders with Mukerji. “For the first two-three shots, I was quite nervous. But your co-actors’ energy helps you. She was so involved in her character that it set the tone on the set,” she says. Off set, she saw a completely different side to Mukerji. “At the mahurat puja, she was there with her family. She was exactly how we are with our families. There was no hint of her stardom.”