If her 30-year career has taught Rani Mukerji something, it’s that every movie is demanding, some more than the others. The Mardaani franchise sits firmly in the second category. With Mardaani 3, as the actor reprises the role of Shivani Shivaji Roy, a rare female cop in mainstream Hindi cinema that has a male-dominated cop universe, she admits taking up such parts isn’t easy. She begins, “In a female actor’s life, a lot of hard work is involved. I’m a married woman who has had a baby. Every month, year, and decade is different for us because of our hormonal changes. We’re constantly battling that. Then we have to work on a role like Shivani, where you have to look a certain way; your body language and manner of speaking have to [convey] that you are a cop.”

Like the previous two instalments, Mardaani 3 was physically punishing. But to the actor, it was far more daunting emotionally as Abhiraj Minawala’s directorial venture reflects the true story of young girls going missing in India. Mukerji shares, “Emotionally, the trauma that the girls suffer in the film is also what we suffer indirectly as we know that they are inspired by true events. To think of the missing girls and what their families go through is traumatising. I had to detach myself from these emotions because if I get too emotional, I may not be able to portray the part well. When I pick up subjects like Mardaani, I’m trying to shake people up and tell them, ‘Look, this is happening around us’.”