Shruti Haasan turned to writing and creating music during the pandemic to stay busy. “I took time off to reconnect with my music and focus on writing and performing more. It was a conscious break that I had taken,” says the actress. She is now looking forward to her upcoming, pan-India film Salaar. “It feels great to be a part of a project that has so much expectation and anticipation around it. Director Prashanth Neel has a great vision and is so good at communicating what he needs. Prabhas is a darling to work with and the energy on sets has been incredible. We had started shooting for it just before the second wave and it was truly epic,” she adds.

Though Shruti looks forward to going back on sets, the actress says that they will only resume shoot when it’s completely safe to do so. “On one of my Tamil projects, I had this unfortunate experience of being on an unsafe set. I had to literally scream to defend my right to not contract Coronavirus. I hope people realise that it’s not okay for even one person to be irresponsible. The first priority for all of us should be to make sure everyone is safe and all safety protocols are followed on set,” she says.

Shruti is one of the few actors who have spoken up about feeling unsafe on the sets and the actress says she will never shy away from speaking her truth. “My truth and my honesty is mine to share. I firmly believe that to have an opinion on other people’s lives and their way of living is politically incorrect. Because you never know what the other person is going through. So, I never say things to scandalise just because I want to portray this notion that I’m a honest person, who doesn’t care what people think. I do care what people think, because I don’t want to hurt them. I want to bring about a good energy, and that can only be done when I’m truthful about myself,” she says, adding, “I get misquoted often and am misunderstood. Now, I understand that I run this risk (of being misquoted), but I’m not going to stop speaking my truth. I think people know me and my way of communication. I feel bad that we live in a time of clickbaits, but I’m going to say what I want to, without hurting people.”