Rani Mukerji completes 25 years in Bollywood this year. To mark the personal milestone, the actor was looking for a story that would speak to her. When she heard the narration of director Ashima Chibber’s Mrs Chatterjee vs Norway, Mukerji knew her search had come to fruition. The film is reportedly based on the true story of Sagarika and Anurup Bhattacharya, whose kids Aishwarya and Abhigyan were taken away from them in 2011 by the Norwegian welfare services, alleging extreme parental neglect. In 2012, after the Indian government’s intervention, the kids were sent back to India to their paternal uncle.

The drama will be a change of gears for Mukerji who was recently seen in the comic caper, Bunty Aur Babli 2. “My audience loves the fact that I am versatile. I can go from playing Babli to this film, which is a whole new world,” she begins.

But the Nikkhil Advani-backed film wasn’t easy to pull off. The team was to begin shooting in April, but the plan was thwarted by the second Coronavirus lockdown. The actor recounts, “The shoot was to go on until May. But the pandemic led to many changes. Estonia, where we were to shoot, closed its borders. So, we went back and forth [on our plans] and finally shot the film in August all the way till September-end.”

The drama is centred on a mother’s battle against a state machinery for her children. Being a parent to a five-year-old daughter, does Mukerji feel more aligned with her character? “When I play a part, I don’t play myself emotionally. I feed off the emotions and turmoil of the character. I can try and put myself in her place, and bring to screen her pain. As an actor, I cannot take my personal journey as a mother into a film. The story is not mine. I borrow emotions from my roles, and portray them to the best of my ability.”