My character is not a poor rich wife: Shefali Shah

For the first time in her life, Shefali stayed away from her husband, filmmaker Vipul Shah, and her two sons for many months. “It was tough because I like to keep tabs on my home and children even when I am shooting. For the first time, I was unreachable for long stretch of time. It bothered me initially, but then I decided to stop thinking as a wife and mother. I just went with the flow and had the time of my life.”

In Dil Dhadakne Do, Shefali plays a woman married to money. “My character is not the bechari (poor) neglected rich wife. Her comments are so below-the-belt, that I went ‘ouch’ while saying them.”

After playing sombre characters in art house-like films, Shefali admits she enjoyed being pampered. “You know, when Zoya came to me she said, ‘I don’t know whether you’ll do this role.’ When I heard the role I said, ‘why not?’ There is this perception that I won’t play a mother. Why? My only problem is that there is very little one can do with a mother’s role in our films. But that wasn’t the case with DDD. Not once did I feel that I was playing mom to two adults (Ranveer Singh and Priyanka Chopra). That isn’t how the part is written. I caught myself off guard speaking those sarcastic lines.”

The sweet aftertaste lingers even now when the shooting is over. Says Shefali happily, “They’re promoting me as one of the six protagonists. I am so happy that I did this film. Zoya did the smartest thing possible by taking all her actors on this cruise. Everyone got into the holiday mood before work. No one came on board with any baggage. Every morning we’d go out on the deck, greet each other and then the shoot would start. There was so much bonhomie on location. I don’t think I’ll ever have so much fun shooting a film.”