‘Don’t call me Mrs Chopra’

Mumbai: Rani Mukerji had everyone’s attention in the room when she interacted with the media for the first time after tying the knot with Aditya Chopra last month.
The obvious first question was how do we address her now? The actress replied, “Address me as Rani Mukherjee. Marriage may have changed my surname, but only for the time when I will be putting my kids in school. For my fans, I will always be Rani Mukherjee.”

The actress was there to unveil the trailer of Mardaani, her first release after marriage. The film has been produced by Aditya Chopra. “This film is very important to us. It’s for all women. It’s to bring out the ‘mardaani’ in them. When I was a little girl, my father used to recite to me the famous lines: Khub ladi woh rani, woh Jhansi wali rani thi. My dad is from Jhansi and my name is of course Rani. It symbolises strong women and by strong, I mean the mental strength. That is what we women have. And that’s what this film portrays.”

The film may be reason for Rani to come out of hiding, but it’s her marriage that garners attention. When asked why she went to Italy for her wedding she said tongue-in-cheek, “My husband took me there, I didn’t have a say, really.”

Also read: Not changing my name for films: Rani Mukerji

One might like to think that we’ll get to see the Chopra couple more often from now on, but Rani rules out the possibility. “He (Adi) has not changed. Our marriage is just an extension of what we used to be. I don’t think he wants to be seen more or be treated more like a celebrity just because he is married to an actor now. And as always, he still concentrates more on his work than on making public appearances.”

She does play a big role in the Yash Raj production house now but Rani has no directorial ambitions. “I don’t have any such plans at all. I’m meant to be in front of the camera,” she says.

Talking about her role in Mardaani, she says, “It was very interesting to play Shivani Roy because she is a female police inspector in the Crime Branch. I was really inspired by female police officers. I don’t think we in India understand their contribution. We tarnish women in general as weak. But there are female officers who are not only as strong as their male counterparts but sometimes even better. This film is one step towards that,” she says.

Rani is unfazed about Ajay Devgn’s film of the same genre that releases a week before Mardaani. “The key difference between our films is the fact that he plays a male cop and I play a female cop, obviously. That makes the stories very different. Also, since I play a cop from the Crime Branch, I am not seen in a uniform,” she says.

“I hope this is my second coming in acting. I also hope I get to work till the time comes for me to hang my boots. But even then, nobody can take the artiste out of me,” she adds.