The year 2023 will be an interesting one for Taapsee Pannu as she gets back to comedy, a genre which she isn’t really known for, with not one, but two films. The actress, who is known for her sharp wit in real life, talks about what kept her away from the genre. The year will also see her sharing screen space with none other than Shah Rukh Khan. Usually seen as the hero of her own films, she elaborates on what it feels like to share screen space with a superstar, how her choices have helped her reach where she is and more. Read on...

With Woh Ladki Hai Kahaan (starring Pratik Gandhi and Prateik Babbar), I am doing an out-and-out comedy. This is the first time I am attempting something of that sort where the joke will not be on me. I will be cracking the jokes. Having said that, both the parts are very challenging. Getting the joke cracked on you is not an easy task because you have to keep a straight face and behave like you didn’t get what just happened, which is difficult.

Likewise, when you know what is happening that’s a different kind of a challenge, too. Comedy is very difficult because the timing of your dialogues and responses is so critical. Comedy is a whole new experience. Usually in comedy films, actresses are cast to add glamour to the story, but this film takes care of that. My character gets to do comedy with Pratik Gandhi’s character. In Dunki, too, I enjoyed doing a lot of comedy.

I did get approached for a few comedy films. Whoever has met me in person or has worked with me in some capacity, knows that comedy comes naturally to me over being intense and serious. I didn’t take up those films because that kind of comedy didn’t match my sensibility or as I said, I didn’t want to be an object of comedy. However, I wanted to do comedy. That’s what the delay was for and finally, I got something which was closest to my sense of humour. That’s what the delay was for and I finally got something where I was closest to my kind of humour.

I think with that kind of a combination where Raju sir and Shah Rukh sir are in the same film, even if they would have asked me to be a tree in the background, I would have done that. The fact that there is a very solid love story in the film, the fact that this is probably one of the strongest roles that in this kind of a set-up a girl (heroine) can imagine doing — all of this is a bonus. I am seeing this film as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. It has happened to me after a decade of working here and every day of the film shoot, I treated it like it might never happen again, so let’s just make the most of it. I am taking home a lot of new things that I learnt from both of them as a professional.

Honestly, I am totally fine with it. I have done a lot of films in between where I was not really worried about who takes the cake. When I did Soorma and Mission Mangal, it was a very thought-out choice that in every film I can’t be the driver. I can’t be the centre of the story every time and I am very comfortable with that. For me, it is like what I am taking away from this film. Am I getting something to learn? From Dunki, I am definitely getting that. It was a 100 per cent choice of mine that I wanted to be around these two (Raju Hirani and SRK) and make the most of the opportunity. Talking about why I didn’t do these kind of films — I never had the option. Having said that, I am glad that I got the kind of films that I did because it helped me create a path of my own. And I think I got Dunki and the role in particular, because of the kind of films I have done so far and not because I have worked with some big names before. Nobody picked up the phone and recommended my name for this, it happened purely because I might have done something right in choosing the kind of films I have done. Even if it took 10 years, I got this film on my own merit.

(Laughs) See most of my contemporaries, who are getting married and having babies had actually met their better halves after I started dating the person I am still dating. Yes, it’s been really long and it’s the same person that I have been dating, thankfully. It is not like I have ever shied away from owning up to it. It is just that my relationship happened in the early years of my career and at that time if this conversation came up, it would be about that and not about my work.

Having said that, I think everybody knows that neither of us are into PDA, nor are we trying to run away from accepting our relationship. We are both self-made individuals in terms of our career and work keeps us occupied. Thankfully, we end up finding time for each other and that has helped this long-distance relationship work for over nine years now. I am not in any competition — neither in my professional life, nor in my personal life. I am perfectly fine with the pace at which I am going in my life.