Actor Ankita Lokhande has come a long way after making her TV debut in 2009 — from the girl who wasn’t confident in her own acting chops, to being a popular celebrity today. She remarks that she is more confident now than ever. She admits there was a lack of preparedness on the acting front. “I was never a good actress; I was a good dancer. I have worked hard to reach this stage in my career.”

Ask her what’s the difference between her today and when she started off and the actor replies, “Sure, I have become more confident about everything. But that’s the only difference I feel. Now, I can manage things on my own, while earlier it was like ‘Mumma, main yeh kar loon kya?’. I would ask my mother everything. Today, I know what’s right and wrong and I am capable of taking my own decisions,” says the actor.

The 37-year-old, last seen in the OTT reboot of her popular show Pavitra Rishta, went on to star in films such as Manikarnika (2019) and Baaghi 3 (2020).

But she shares that she wasn’t planning a career as an actor. In fact, such was her self-doubt that even her mother began doubting her choices. “My mother wasn’t confident when I decided to become an actor. She repeatedly asked me ‘Tu kar legi na?’ I said ‘Mumma! Please be quiet, I will’. She couldn’t understand, but then I went to the sets of Pavitra Rishta and saw all the senior actors including, Sushant (Singh Rajput, late co-star) It was something else,” gushes Lokhande.

Today, the scale of the film doesn’t matter to her. “I am reading scripts and I will grab the role which offers me a meaty part,” she ends.