I was really worried to work with Irrfan Khan sir, says Mithila Palkar

Actress Mithila Palkar, who has been an internet darling in her own right, will be seen with two seasoned actors — Irrfan Khan and Dulquer Salmaan — in Akarsh Khurana’s Karwaan (2018). Of the two, she felt intimidated only by Khan.

“I am a fan of both Irrfan sir and Dulquer. But I was in awe of Irrfan sir. It was a little intimidating. He is not intimidating, but it comes from the place of respect and awe. I was really worried to work with him because he is Irrfan Khan,” she said during a recent interview.

This is because she hadn’t seen Dulquer’s work before. “I got to be his friend first before becoming his co-actor or fan. We met a couple of times for readings before we started shooting. I watched a lot of his films after we started working together. I became his fan later and I got to know him as a person first. I am glad. That helped because if I was intimidated by both of them I think I would have started crying or something,” she laughed. “It was a learning experience and it was a very enriching one at that,” added Palkar.

It was later while shooting the road movie in Kerala that she got a taste of Dulquer’s stardom. “It was a lot of fun. It was my first experience [of a road film]. I was taking it all in. I was like a child left in Disneyland. It was challenging because we were in Kerala, which is Dulquer’s home state and everybody knew he was shooting there. So, we constantly had people coming to see and meet him,” added Palkar.

When asked about her character Tanya, she said, “She is a 19-year-old; probably the youngest character I have played so far. Having said that, the number of characters I have played I can count on my fingertips. Everything is very new for me,” she said. “Tanya is very feisty, confident and practical towards her approach towards life. She is very unapologetic. She has this take-it-or-leave-it attitude. ‘Log kya kahenge?’ is very below her. [She is like] this is how I am; deal with it.”

Palkar became an internet sensation through her web videos, including the one where she sang a Marathi song with music she created using a cup. Thinking about it she said, “It was very unplanned. I didn’t really think that this is how things would take a turn.” She has appeared in the Youtube web-series Girl In The City and Little Things. Little Things 2 will be aired on streaming platform Netflix as an original.

But acting was surely her only plan. “Obviously when I started working as an actor, I knew I had to be an actor. That was my goal in life. But I didn’t know how to go about it. My primary ambition wasn’t to play a lead in Bollywood. I just wanted to act and do some good work and wanted to be a part of good content and work with good people. Whatever came to me as an opportunity, I just made the most of it,” she signed off.

Palkar made her Marathi film debut with Muramba (2017), where she was cast opposite Amey Wagh. She shared that she has not signed any Marathi movie after that.

Karwaan will be released on 3 August.