Everything about her character in Bad Cop felt like a wish come true for Harleen Sethi. Yet, she initially refused director Aditya Datt’s crime thriller. Reason? She was skeptical about playing Devika Naik, a young mother. “Our industry tends to stereotype actors quickly. The moment you hear it’s the role of a young mother, as a female actor, you get scared. You think what if the industry offers only such parts thereon,” she reveals.

But the director’s persistence made Sethi eventually embrace the part of Devika, who is also a police officer, in the Gulshan Devaiah and Anurag Kashyap-led series. Now, she counts it as one of those roles that gave her not only creative satisfaction, but also a sense of fulfilment.

“I enjoy doing roles that speak to society in some way. Another reason was that I got to don the uniform. I come from a Sikh family, and Sikhs have a long-standing relationship with the uniform. They wear it with absolute responsibility. Thirdly, I got to do action. How many such parts are written for women?”

Another perk was sharing screen space with Devaiah, whom she considers a fluid artiste. “I learnt so much by just observing him. He is unpredictable. That’s why his choices in a scene are interesting.”

The Disney+ Hotstar series follows Sethi’s breakthrough work, Kohrra (2023). The actor says she has seen a drastic shift in the industry’s perception of her since the release of the Sudip Sharma-created series. “Since Kohrra, I don’t have to walk up to people at parties; they come up to me to speak. I have gained more respect in the industry. There is the stamp of a good actor on me now.”