Janhvi Kapoor on Good Luck Jerry and feeling more secure with herself today

Four years and four films later, actor Janhvi Kapoor feels braver and more secure as an actor. And her upcoming film titled Good Luck Jerry bears a testament to it. The film will see her playing a 24-year-old docile girl, who is coerced by circumstances to enter the world of drugs. While her character, who tries to navigate through the chaos in the dark underbelly of the state, may seem starkly opposite to that of her real being, she believes that both the women have been labelled by people in one more ways than one.

Excerpts from the interview:

Good Luck Jerry is your third film where you play the titular character after Gunjan Saxena: The Kargil Girl (2020) and Roohi (2021), tell us about your experience.

Now that you mention it, it sounds like a big deal (laughs). I’ve chosen from the scripts that came my way and have chased some films that I wanted to be a part of just on the basis of the story, the character, the people involved and the journey that the process would entail. The thought that I shouldn’t be playing titular characters so early on in my career never crossed my head. I’m here to act and I’m getting the opportunity to be a part of some great stories. I want to try new things, so why shouldn’t I play titular parts?

Jerry seems to be a character who’s unlike you in real life. What was it about the film that spoke to you?

I wish I could give you a deep answer but it just seemed like something very new to me. In the film, people perceive and categorise Jerry as a very naïve and innocent girl, but she’s so much more than that. People have put me into boxes too and I realised that I’m not any of those things. When they meet me or speak to me for the first time, they go, ‘Janhvi kitni bholi, maasoom aur bechaari si hai’. I would like to think that I’m more than that because everyone is more than what they seem to be. And Jerry is a prime example of a person like that.

You’ll be seen speaking the Bihari dialect in the film. Do you think the process of slipping under the skin of a character becomes easier using a distinct dialect?

It adds a very individual shade to a character and helps in its detailing. A new dialect makes you feel like you’ve stepped outside of yourself and have become someone else because when you speak with a different accent, the rhythm of the way you speak changes and therefore, the pace and the rhythm with which you think and breathe also changes. Speaking with a Bihari accent not just helped differentiate me from Jerry but also Jerry from the other characters I’ve played. I hope I’ve done justice to it.

Did you go through elaborate workshops?

Yes, I did a lot of workshopping and training to get it right. They went on for about a couple of months. And while I was prepping for Good Luck Jerry, I was auditioning for another film and during that process, my director kept telling me that I’m sounding too Bihari and I should tone it down. That was the moment that made me realise that I’m probably ready to play Jerry.

Personally, what helped you prep for the part?

For most films, I’ve a playlist I listen to while shooting for the first half and then I go to another one while filming the second half. For this one, I had one playlist throughout. It had a lot of songs from Anurag Kashyap’s films, along with some Punjabi rap.

Take us a bit through the time you spent in Punjab during the filming process.

It helped me so much that we were shooting in live locations. We filmed at Bassi Pathana in a house actually inhabited by a family there. Seeing how the locals live, talking to the neighbours, scouting for local food joints, walking through by-lanes and meeting other people really helped. I didn’t have to imagine Jerry’s world; it was there around me. I spent about 70 days in Chandigarh, Patiala and Bassi Pathana. I remember driving a rickshaw to and back from set every day. It felt like home.

Good Luck Jerry marks your first collaboration with Aanand L Rai. Did he give you any input on playing the character of Jerry?

We had a couple of meetings. He was there for the narration. He called me before the first day of my shoot and he told me to not be scared. It was important for me to hear because I was taking a lot of pressure initially to be good and give it my all. Sometimes, that stops you from enjoying your time on a film set. I believe it’s enough to just have fun while you’re working; it needn’t be a struggle all the time.

Now that you’re in the fourth year of your career in showbiz, how do you think you've evolved over the years?

I’ve been trying to do a better job at cancelling out the noise around me. I think I’ve become slightly more secure. I’ve started believing in myself a little more in terms of what I can offer as an actor, which feels great. I also feel I’ve become braver because I understand that I can make a thousand calculated decisions but at the end of the day, you’re here to make movies and do what you love. I say this to myself every day.