‘My focus was on matching up to the brilliance of other actors in Shaitaan’
Playing a possessed girl in Vash was mentally and physically draining for Janki. Talking about revisiting the same character in Shaitaan, she says, “I had spent a lot of time getting into the skin of the character while filming for Vash, and that helped. Getting into character for Shaitaan did take some time, but my focus was on matching up to the brilliance of Ajay Devgn, Madhavan sir and Jyothika ma’am. Eventually, things became easy.”
In a still from Shaitaan
‘KD sir helped me to break my cute girl image in the industry’
Janki, whowillcomplete 10 years in D-Town next year, calls her journey “unpredictable.” The Naadi Dosh actress says, “When I signed Chhello Divas (2015), I had no idea about my career. I don’t have a theatre background, so whatever I have learnt till date has been on the job.”
Crediting Vash director Krishnadev Yagnik (KD) for her growth, she adds, “I trust KD sir with every project he offers me. Be it the bold sequence in Naadi Dosh or intense scenes in Vash, he communicated it clearly from the beginning, which made the process easy. With Vash, he helped me to break my cute girl image in the industry.”
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“In my initial years in the industry, I was exploring different projects and learning different things. Around 2019, I realised that I had enough experience to be choosy about projects and started looking out for different subjects and characters. When I signed Naadi Dosh in 2019, the second part of my journey began.”
“I feel the only difference between Bollywood films and Gujarati films lies in terms of their reach. The way our filmmaking has evolved over the years, we have levelled up and are no longer behind in creating films. Ours is a growing industry and I hope that audiences give a chance to our films too.”
With Yash Soni in a still from Chhello Divas
“People loved our (Yash Soni and I) onscreen chemistry in Naadi Doshi. But off screen, until the last day of the shoot, we didn’t say anything beyond ‘Hi’ and ‘Hello’ to each other. Now, we are friends and it is great that people love our on-screen pair. It’s funny that we are not offered any film together, I don’t know why (laughs)! I hope we get to work together in a film soon.”
“I want to experiment with my looks and not have that subtle image in terms of fashion. I feel I am finally more accessible to the teams now, who can match my vision and give creative inputs on how to experiment with my looks, hair, and make-up”
