Ishaan Khatter on Playing Mrunal Thakur's Brother in Pippa: 'I Was Scared…' | Exclusive

It’s not every day that contemporaries in Bollywood are seen playing siblings onscreen. But the latest duo to join the exclusive league of Shah Rukh Khan-Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, Ranveer Singh-Priyanka Chopra and John Abraham-Deepika Padukone is Ishaan Khatter and Mrunal Thakur. The two will be seen playing brother and sister in Pippa, a retelling of the Battle of Garibpur fought between India and Pakistan.

A while back, Mrunal in an exclusive chat with News18 Showsha revealed that filmmakers raised their eyebrows over her choice to play Ishaan’s sister in the film. “A lot of people associated with the filmmaking business called me and told me, ‘Are you stupid? Are you crazy? Why do you want to play sister to a contemporary? You won’t be paired opposite him in near future. You shouldn’t have done this!’” she had said.

Speaking to us, Ishaan now reacts to these comments and debunks the myth surrounding actors playing onscreen siblings and how it can prove to be detrimental to their careers. “Mrunal’s breaking the status quo. In fact, I was scared I was playing her brother (laughs). I was like, maine toh apna chance kharaab nahi kar di? But on a serious note, I think it’s about making that connection onscreen. If people like seeing us this way and the chemistry that we have, then there’s no harm,” he opines.

In fact, Ishaan goes on to laud Mrunal and states that he wouldn’t have wanted to share the experience of doing Pippa with anyone else other than her. “We’ve a few scenes in the film together and they’re really special, especially for me, and I so enjoyed doing them with her. I had such a joyous experience working with Mrunal. She’s such a wonderful actress with an attractive persona and she’s magnetic onscreen. She’s just a lovely co-actor and that comes alive,” he tells us, adding that he hopes to ‘work together again’ with Mrunal soon.

Mrunal, in a similar vein, continues, “They [detractors] will be happy to watch us play siblings. Relationships keep changing. We’re actors and it doesn’t matter if he’s playing my boyfriend, husband or brother. What’s important is that we should be able to feel the parts and the audience gets to feel the scenes.”

Last year, the Sita Ramam actor played a mother in Jersey co-starring Ishaan’s elder brother, Shahid Kapoor. In reference to it, Mrunal reiterates that she wants to set new precedents with her choice. “To be honest, I don’t like getting into all these things because Pippa was a beautiful journey. I couldn’t have missed out working with an incredible human like Ishaan. I’ve had such a great time with him and I genuinely don’t care [about what people say]. Some actors also have that inhibition wherein they don’t want to play mothers but I want to change that and break that norm,” she elaborates.

Pippa is all set to premiere on Amazon Prime on November 10.