She is the busiest actor in 2021. After all Parineeti Chopra already has had three film releases — The Girl On The Train, Sandeep Aur Pinky Faraar and Saina this year, all of which are starkly different from one another and a far cry from her girl-next-door image that she had in the initial phase of her career.

So, has it been a conscious decision for her to stay away from such roles now? “100% yes. I was feeling a bit saturated with the kind of work that was being offered and the kind of work that I was choosing. When I did certain type of roles and did them well on screen, nobody envisioned me doing anything different. But I had faith in myself and I wanted to surprise the audience, and shock them,” she says.

However, Chopra, who started her acting career with Ladies vs Ricky Bahl (2011), adds that one does not always get to do what they want in the film industry.

“It is a two way street. Makers need to have that confidence in me. So, actually I am thankful to Dibakar (Banerjee) sir, Ribhu (Dasgupta) and Amole (Gupte) sir. They were the three directors who saw me outside of what I had done onscreen. I was aching and itching to do these kind of meaningful roles. I am thankful to them for putting faith in me and getting the ball rolling for me. Now, jokingly people call me Pari 2.0 version,” the 32-year-old shares.

Two of the actor’s films have been theatrical releases and Chopra says she is happy that things are slowly getting back to normalcy.

“It is a mixed feeling. Last year, given the climate, it wasn’t feasible to do any cinematic releases properly and you know most people decided to shift their work to this year. So in 2021 there seems to be a lot of traffic, loads of releases. In any other year I would have said wow what a year for me I have three films releases within a month, but honestly this year it is more about keeping fingers crossed and seeing how people react and how our films do. More than my films releasing in cinemas, my relief is that things are getting back to normal,” the actor explains.

But Chopra also feels that it was a wise decision for makes to go for OTT releases. Her film The Girl On The Train was one too. “Times have changed in the way films used to release last year. There are now limited releases, there are OTT releases, films are releasing in all sorts of way,” she concludes.