The Seriously Funny Actor

For Juhi Chawla, at 44, getting the right roles that she can fit into, isn't easy. "I am in that age when I can neither play mummy to the hero nor can I run around trees," says the actor. She is happy doing advertisements and TV shows, but whenever she gets a good role, she latches on to it. So, when Son of Sardar (SOS) and Main Krishna Hoon were offered to her, she had no qualms accepting them.

The last time Chawla worked on a big Bollywood set with perfect make-up and costume was in the 2007 children's film Bhootnath. So when she was approached for SOS by Ajay Devgn, she thought of this as a welcome change. "For a while, I have been doing smaller budget films, where my directors always asked me to be natural and wear very little or no make-up. I remember during the shoot of 3 Deewaarein, the cameraman told me to lighten my lipstick." she says, adding, "So on the sets of SOS, I was happy doing my whole Bollywood routine with song, dance, comedy and romance."

On the other hand, Main Krishna Hoon is a film she did for her children. "I had taken my daughter Jahnvi to watch My Friend Ganesha. She loved it so much that I decided to do the maker's next film, which is this," she explains.

There is a certain effervescence in Chawla that separates her from the rest of her ilk. In the late '80s and '90s, Chawla, along with Sridevi and Madhuri Dixit-Nene, formed the female triumvirate in Bollywood. Chawla, however, laughs it off. She says, "Sriji was someone I looked up to. For me, it was Madhuri who was more of a competition." Chawla says that every female actor has her own journey in the industry and so did she. Chawla, who had several blockbusters to her credit, got associated with a certain comic image over time. This has stayed with her and even in SOS, Devgn wanted to make use of that. "I did comedy because I found it the easiest to do. I tried to be seductive but I was too shy and when it came to dance, Madhuri was way better than me," she admits.

... contd.

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