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.”

After Mard Ko Dard Nahi Hota (2018), Gulshan Devaiah is playing a double role again in Bad Cop. That’s not the only similarity between the two projects. The upcoming web series is also the first time he is attempting hardcore action since the Vasan Bala-directed venture.

“After six years, I got into full-blown action sequences in Bad Cop, and it took me back to the exhilarating days of Mard Ko Dard Nahi Hota. The experience of having performed [stunts] earlier gave me the confidence and the awareness to do it safely. It was immensely satisfying,” says the actor.

Considering the Aditya Datt-helmed show is high on action, Devaiah had to undergo exhaustive prep. “Most of my prep was cardiovascular. I did interval training, wherein I would do three minutes of high-intensity training in boxing rings and mix it up with a minute of relaxation.”

In Bad Cop, Devaiah plays the double role of Karan and Arjun—one is an honest cop, and the other, a thief. Both have a common enemy in Anurag Kashyap’s character Kazbe. How was the experience of sharing screen space with the filmmaker, who launched him in movies? To Devaiah, shooting an action-packed climax with Kashyap was worth all the hard work he put in. In fact, it was one of the factors that drew him to the show.

“I enjoyed shooting the action-heavy climax with Anurag. [Even otherwise], I got a lot of time to hang with him. It was a memorable experience, especially doing the action scenes with him.”