Pakistani actress Sajal Ali on friendly equation with Janhvi Kapoor, recalls Mom co-star Sridevi helping her during Bollywood debut: ‘She had a lot of empathy and kindness towards me’ : Bollywood News

Pakistani actress Sajal Ali is currently busy promoting her first international project, Shekhar Kapur’s cross-cultural British romantic comedy What’s Love Got to Do with It? Starring alongside Emma Thompson, Asim Chaudhry, Shabana Azmi, Jeff Mirza, Alice Orr-Ewing, and Oliver Chris, the film releases in the UK in February followed by March 3^rd release in India. Amid the promotions, the actress spoke about working with the late actress Sridevi, who passed away in 2018.

Pakistani actress Sajal Ali on friendly equation with Janhvi Kapoor, recalls Mom co-star Sridevi helping her during Bollywood debut: ‘She had a lot of empathy and kindness towards me’

Speaking to BBC Asian Network during the UK promotions, Sajal Ali recalled how young she was during the shoot of Mom alongside Sridevi. She said that she had developed a good friendship with Janhvi Kapoor who was yet to debut in movies and that Sridevi was guiding her throughout the process of filming the movie. Interestingly, it was also the first movie she worked on. “It was kind of unbelievable for me, sitting in front of her, acting, giving dialogues and stuff like that. You can simply forget everything after simply looking at her. I think an indication of a good actor is that it is important for them to be a good human too. Sometimes you get intimidated seeing actors and they understand that the other person is kind of scared and intimidated. But, if you know, the first thing a good person, a good actor will do is make the other person comfortable. She was that kind of actor. She had a lot of empathy and kindness towards me.”

Recalling the scene where she wears a red dress in Mom, she continued, “I got ready and she said ‘Oh, get some curls done to your hair’. She was acting like a mother to me although she was simply a co-star and if she didn’t say anything, it wouldn’t have made much difference. But, just the fact that she actually cared about how I looked and how I can look better, won my heart completely.”

Furthermore, when asked about her equation with Janhvi Kapoor, who accompanied Sridevi to the sets of Mom during the shoots, Sajal Ali said that they had become close. The actors had met each other after several years at Filmfare Middle East 2022 award show and the video of the two of them hugging each other had gone viral. She said, “We met after six years after my mother and her mother passed away. Probably because of our mothers as well, we sort of became quite close. I connect with her and she does the same. We used to keep in touch but obviously, she started her career as well and got busy.”

Sajal Ali is busy promoting What’s Love Got To Do With It? The story is set between London and Lahore, love and friendship, tradition and iconoclasm. What’s Love Got To Do With It? is a cross-cultural British romantic comedy that follows a documentary-maker and dating app addict Zoe (Lily James), for whom, swiping right has only delivered an endless stream of Mr Wrongs, to her eccentric mother Cath’s (Emma Thompson) dismay. For Zoe’s childhood friend and neighbour Kaz (Shazad Latif), the answer is to follow his parents’ example and opt for an arranged (or “assisted”) marriage to a bright and beautiful bride from Pakistan. As Zoe films his hopeful journey from London to Lahore to marry a stranger, chosen by his parents, she begins to wonder if she might have something to learn from a profoundly different approach to finding love.

What’s Love Got To Do With It will release in theatres in India on March 3. Meanwhile, the actress is also starring in the Urdu drama Kuch Ankahi.

Tags : Bollywood, Down The Memory Lane, Features, Flashback, India, Janhvi Kapoor, MOM, Pakistan, Sajal Ali, Sajal Aly, Sridevi, Throwback, What’s Love Got To Do With It