Rani Mukerji on why she takes gap between movies: ‘I wait for audience’s reaction for my film that is releasing’

With her latest film Mrs Chatterjee Vs Norway, Rani Mukerji returned to films after nearly two years. In the past decade, after her marriage to Aditya Chopra and the birth of her daughter Adira, the actor has become selective in the films that she acts in. She was last seen in Bunty Aur Babli 2 in 2021 where she reprised her popular role from the 2005 film Bunty Aur Babli. During promotions for Mrs Chatterjee Vs Norway, Rani shared that she likes to take time between projects to check the audience reaction and catch up on what other artistes are doing, both at home and around the world. (Also read: Rani Mukerji says the word ‘content’ bothers her a lot, movies should be watched in theatres)

Mrs Chatterjee vs Norway is based on the real-life story of Sagarika Chakraborty whose children were taken away from the Norwegian government because they thought her children were being mistreated. Directed by Ashima Chibber, the film also stars Anirban Bhattacharya, Jim Sarbh and Neena Gupta. This was only her fifth film in a decade and her previous two films Mardaani 2 and Bunty Aur Babli 2 were sequels.

Speaking to Pinkvilla, the actor explained why she chooses to wait between films, “The reason that I take this gap is because I wait for an audience reaction for my film that is releasing. The fact is that I stay at home and replenish myself. I kind of think. I kind of see cinemas from around the world, what is coming and what kind of work people are doing across the globe. Because we as actors are always waiting to get inspired as well. So when I see work from actors in our country, from different regional cinemas, and when I see films that are made outside our country as well, it gives me a lot of inspiration as an actor and as a person from cinema, to be able to do something new or to give the global audience a story which needs to be told.”

She added, “I would always like to be associated to films and stories that I think people should know. That is my criteria and may be it comes not frequently. It takes time. So the amount of time I take to decide for my next film, I think that much time it takes for somebody to come up with a story as well.”

Recently, Rani also appeared in the Netflix docu-series The Romantics which told the story of filmmaker Yash Chopra and the legacy of his production banner, Yash Raj Films. Directed by Smriti Mundra, it also featured her husband, Aditya, speaking about his films in an interview after decades.