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Mona Singh has come a long way ever since she was seen as Jassi in ‘Jassi Jaisi Koi Nahi’. She’s got a lot of love for her recent projects – from ‘Made in Heaven 2’ to now ‘Munjya’. As the actress celebrated the success of this horror comedy ‘Munjya’ which crossed the Rs 100 crore mark, ETimes had a long, candid chat with Mona, all about her journey.Amidst that, she also spoke about ‘Laal Singh Chaddha‘ and the film’s fate at the box office. Not to mention, playing Aamir Khan‘s mother in the film. This was her second collaboration with the actor post ‘3 Idiots’.
Ask Mona if she ever had any apprehensions about it and she said, “I think that’s the joy of being an actor, you can be any age and look anything you want to. For me, it was a dream role. It was so challenging and tough to crack. You are seeing her whole life span. To go to an age of 60. I was getting sleepless nights and that too working with Aamir sir. Not once I thought that ‘oh I’m playing his mother’, or will I get roles after that? The more challenging the role for me, the better. My conditions are never that I want to look pretty, or the role is younger or the children should be younger. I think because I went with the conviction of giving my 100 percent, peopl saw that on screen. I was confident of the fact that, with great homework, I will be able to achieve that.”
But did she expect the movie to do better? One recalls Aamir was a bit upset because of the way the film was received. However, now, after its OTT release, the audience has loved the film, though it did not do well at the box office. Recalling meeting Aamir post the release, Mona said, “Today, it has a new life on OTT. Poeple were celebrating 1 year of ‘Laal Singh Chadha’ and cursing themselves for not going in theatres. That’s the kind of response we expected when it released in theatres. I met Aamir sir and Advait two days after the film released and we were just quiet looking at each other thinking, ‘yeh kya ho gaya’? Everyone worked so hard, of course, we work hard for every project but this was so close to us. We’ve experienced so much in life, Covid aa gaya, kitna kuch ho gaya in those three years that we shot the film. It was very unfortunate.”
Ask Mona if she ever had any apprehensions about it and she said, “I think that’s the joy of being an actor, you can be any age and look anything you want to. For me, it was a dream role. It was so challenging and tough to crack. You are seeing her whole life span. To go to an age of 60. I was getting sleepless nights and that too working with Aamir sir. Not once I thought that ‘oh I’m playing his mother’, or will I get roles after that? The more challenging the role for me, the better. My conditions are never that I want to look pretty, or the role is younger or the children should be younger. I think because I went with the conviction of giving my 100 percent, peopl saw that on screen. I was confident of the fact that, with great homework, I will be able to achieve that.”
But did she expect the movie to do better? One recalls Aamir was a bit upset because of the way the film was received. However, now, after its OTT release, the audience has loved the film, though it did not do well at the box office. Recalling meeting Aamir post the release, Mona said, “Today, it has a new life on OTT. Poeple were celebrating 1 year of ‘Laal Singh Chadha’ and cursing themselves for not going in theatres. That’s the kind of response we expected when it released in theatres. I met Aamir sir and Advait two days after the film released and we were just quiet looking at each other thinking, ‘yeh kya ho gaya’? Everyone worked so hard, of course, we work hard for every project but this was so close to us. We’ve experienced so much in life, Covid aa gaya, kitna kuch ho gaya in those three years that we shot the film. It was very unfortunate.”
Mona Singh On MUNJYA Success, Struggles To Break Her Image And Laal Singh Chadha’s FAILURE
Calling it a ‘bad timing’, she further added, “I remember messaging Kiran (Rao) also and she said, ‘Mona let’s forget about all this and look at the bigger picture.’ And that’s what we did, we saw the bigger picture. And somewhere I had a feeling that in future it might get a cult status and I think it did get now.”
