Practice makes perfect | Geetanjali Kulkarni

To stage lovers, she is known for her delightful work in Piya Behrupiya, Atul Kumar’s acclaimed musical take on the Bard’s Twelfth Night. Her performance as Viola in it would lead to the breakthrough role as a lawyer in Chaitanya Tamhane’s sublime debut Court. For most, though, she is Gullak’s Shanti Mishra/‘Annu Ki Mummy’, the much-loved mother of the web series. This week, viewers couldn’t escape Geetanjali Kulkarni on OTT. SonyLIV released season five of the popular slice-of-life family dramedy, Gullak, while Kulkarni has a key supporting part in Netflix’s Maa Behen, the dark comedy that also stars Madhuri Dixit Nene and Tripti Dimri.

One look at Kulkarni’s filmography and it is evident how her finest work has come in the indie space. “I am very good at start-ups actually,” she says with a smile. But she admits that she was “surprised and upset” that post Court, she didn’t receive many Hindi or Marathi—her mother tongue—film offers. What she got was recognition, which materialised in auditions. Kulkarni cleverly chose to shun parts that pigeonholed her into being a mother of leads to opt for films on the basis of scripts and directors with distinct work processes.

Talking about her own thespian process, Kulkarni says she relies extensively on “rehearsals and preparation” to get into a character’s skin. It has made her avoid the rigour of television and still lean to stage (she’s currently touring with the Marathi play Karunashtake). “In TV, you don’t get a lot of time,” she says. “To rote and render is not my skill set.” Rehearsals came in handy, especially for season five of Gullak, after Vaibhav Raj Gupta, who plays the Annu of ‘Annu ki Mummy’, quit and a familial bond needed to be established with the new actor, Anant V. Joshi. “I have never seen all actors come together and intervene to make peace between an actor [Gupta] and the company [The Viral Fever]. All of us went the extra mile,” says Kulkarni. “Unfortunately, it didn’t happen.”

With Maa Behen, Kulkarni relished the “wacky characters and quirky dialogues” that writer Pooja Tolani has imagined for Suresh Triveni’s film. OTTs have given Kulkarni the work she has long merited, but the space isn’t as vibrant as before, she says. “I won’t disagree that it has helped because otherwise we don’t get screen space in theatrical films. Series are long-format and, with seasons, we are able to explore our roles deeper,” she says. “But the two to three years have been difficult, opportunities have shrunk.” Now, with the double bonanza of Gullak and Maa Behen, Kulkarni hopes the shoot calendar gets busy again.