The Making Of

In the after light of her sparkling debut, Janhvi Kapoor talks about the momentous onset of her career with an unbottled charm and crystal line candour

- Tanya Mehta

It’s a rather downcast Friday afternoon and Janhvi Kapoor is nestled amongst an assortment of plush cushions, on a couch in her Mumbai home. Adorning the walls is priceless family nostalgia, portraits of Kapoor with her younger sister Khushi as well as pictures of their father, Boney Kapoor and late mother, legendary actor, Sridevi.

Kapoor is dressed in a pair of leggings and a T-shirt, her skin devoid of any make-up. Halfway through our conversation she interjects and asks, “Wait, do I sound cocky?” This is one of the many reasons that make her so endearing. While she belongs to a pedigreed lineage and possesses all the attributes of a Bollywood ‘IT’- girl, behind her edifice lies an atypical rawness. Kapoor has just returned from Grazia’s cover-shoot in Singapore, which occurred, on the brink of Dhadak’s release. In the sweltering heat she worked the camera in heavy-duty autumn looks to a music playlist spanning from Kishore Kumar to Jay-Z. Her biggest highlight from the trip, she says, was devouring a lamb chop for lunch and sharing a Japanese dinner with her bodyguard and ‘homie’, Aadil ji.

Kapoor received her launchpad through Dhadak, a remake of cult Marathi film Sairat and a highly anticipated flick where she stars opposite Ishaan Khatter. Set in the picturesque Udaipur the film documents the forbidden romance of Parthavi, a cunning politician’s daughter and Madhukar, a middleclass student. In a bid to escape family conflicts and societal scrutiny, the duo flee their hometown and embark on a riveting coming-of-age journey. While the film has been a roaring success at the box office, the reviews came as a mixed bag. One can’t, however, evade the fact that Kapoor has a strong screen presence and seamlessly transitions from playing a privileged heiress to a downtrodden teenager.