When Rani Mukerji met Rachel Griffiths in Melbourne

Rani Mukerji met a kindred spirit in Australian actress Rachel Griffiths when the two met up at the Indian Film Festival of Melbourne awards night on 12 August. The Indian actress was honoured with the Best Actress award for her role as Naina Mathur, a teacher with Tourette syndrome who inspires her rag-tag group of students to do better in Hichki (2018) directed by Siddharth P Malhotra.

The Oscar-nominated actress attended the awards night at the festival and presented the Best Film award to Sanju (2018). Director Rajkumar Hirani, co-writer Abhijat Joshi and actor Vicky Kaushal were on hand to collect the award from Griffiths.

The two actresses met up afterwards and Griffiths was moved by Mukerji's speech at the night about inclusion and how Hindi cinema had never broached that topic before. The Australian actress was keen to watch Hichki (2018) and shared news about her next film which she will be directing herself.

Griffiths's next project is Ride Like A Girl, a biopic on jockey Michelle Payne, who became the first women in 2015 to win Australia's Melbourne Cup. Mukerji too expressed interest in watching the film and invited Griffiths to come visit India. To which, the Australian actress said she would love to and planned on flying there soon.