From riding a heavy bike around the Himalayas in Dhak Dhak to playing daughter to Pankaj Tripathi in Kadak Singh, Sanjana Sanghi has had her hands full of late. The 27-year-old actress talked to us about her journey since her debut as the female lead in Dil Bechara and where she’s headed next.

Your recent releases — Dhak Dhak on Netflix and Kadak Singh on ZEE5 — are doing quite well. How does it feel?

Sanjana Sanghi: It feels amazing. I feel very special as an actor when my instincts resonate with the audience’s. That’s important for my future choices. The nature of love on OTT is so different because people engage with your film many times over. The kind of messages we have got for Dhak Dhak is immense. Globally, it was trending on Netflix. Not just women but men too have watched it again and again. This is what OTT gives you; it’s where the audience can reconnect with you if they have loved it. The bond is very deep.

How was the experience of filming Dhak Dhak with your co-actors Fatima Sana Shaikh, Dia Mirza and Ratna Pathak Shah?

Sanjana Sanghi: It was so much fun. While we were on the journey, we felt like something special was happening. You can feel it in your heart and stomach. There were 300 people moving around 80+ locations across the majestic Himalayas and making a movie. It almost used to sound unreal. I had to pinch myself many times.

This film let me ride a Royal Enfield in Ladakh. There was no way growing up in Delhi that my dad would want me to ride a bike. It was all before the shoot that Dia Mirza, Fatima and I learnt how to ride a bike. Riding for a film is more challenging. We were shooting on actual highways with traffic. It was the work of a genius production team. They are all superheroes. I am so excited for the sequel. We are going to be making it bigger and better and going elsewhere. I can’t wait to get back to it.

⁠How has it been to work with director Aniruddha Roy Chowdhury on Kadak Singh?

Sanjana Sanghi: There are certain experiences where you feel that something has transformed within you. Both as an individual, as an artist and as a young person, the entire year that I spent with Tony-da (Aniruddha) and his incredible team did that for me. Tony-da is so nurturing, so giving and so respectful that you just feel like giving it your all. Every moment I spent on the Kadak Singh set, I was giving my thousand and one per cent and that came from within. I didn’t have to force it. I think that reflects in the performance as well. We gelled very well, which again doesn’t happen a lot. The Kadak Singh set was smooth sailing.

What went behind creating the father-daughter bond with Pankaj Tripathi in Kadak Singh?

Sanjana Sanghi: Pankaj sir (Pankaj Tripathi) and I had spent a lot of time together during the pre-production. I am so glad that he made sure to take out that time. We did a 10-day workshop at Pankaj sir’s house where he called Prasanna sir, who was his and Irfaan (Khan) sir’s coach at the National School of Drama. This helped us to understand our characters quite well. Prasanna sir came in and did an extensive workshop with us.

I would stick around at Pankaj sir’s house, eat lunch and spend time with him. We would sometimes read a scene, or sometimes not talk about the film at all. We would talk about life. I think it was those moments when we understood the nuances of the father-daughter dynamic. In our personal lives, I am close to my father and he is close to his daughter, but in the film the father and the daughter are not close to each other. It was very far from our emotional reality as people. That required quite a lot of digging deep for both of us.

⁠Was there a scene in Kadak Singh that was a challenge to perform?

Sanjana Sanghi: I love to feel that something is daunting and spend endless hours cracking it, and luckily Sakshi as a character had so much of it. She is a young woman holding the house together, a very responsible sister, an empathetic daughter. She wears many hats at the same time. Because it is a thriller, we were also dealing with very fast-moving plots.

Kadak Singh is a mix of family drama and thriller. We were speaking a lot on what the tonality should be in general. The one scene that felt like a standout moment is the emotional confrontation between AK Shrivastav (Pankaj Tripathi) and Sakshi. That was a six or seven-page monologue. That’s where all of the training and hours of work over the years came into use.

⁠How would you describe your evolution as an actor and as a person?

Sanjana Sanghi: I am 27 now, and I look back at when I was about 20-21 years old and moved to Mumbai. I didn’t have any plans but I had the passion and could work hard. I could have never imagined my four films as a leading actor would be so vastly different from one another. That is always the desire of any actor. The fact that none of the genres was repeated has really allowed me to grow and discover myself as an actor. That has been wonderful.

There has been a huge parallel personal journey too. I have grown up in Delhi with my family. Making Mumbai a home, learning how to live alone, managing a home alone, not dealing with loneliness and not letting it bog you down has been a whole journey of its own.

It has been an enriching journey altogether. One of my biggest shortcomings as an individual has been something that my parents have always scolded me about — that I don’t know how to stop and give a little pat on my back. I don’t want to be harsh on myself. Hopefully, 2024 is going to be about a consistent pace, a lot more self-love and being kinder and happier with myself.

⁠Dil Bechara released three years back. Do you have any strong memories of the film?

Sanjana Sanghi: It was the most fundamental experience for sure. When it is your first film as a leading actor, everything feels new in that sense. I had been on many sets as a child artist. I used to do ad commercials. Suddenly when you’re leading a film, your entire dynamic changes. I am so grateful that some of the filmmakers I look up to the most have watched my very first film as a leading actor and believed that I could do all kinds of roles.

⁠What is next for you?

Sanjana Sanghi: I took off for a one-week course at Columbia University. I want to do things that make me the most happy. I have been shooting endlessly for a year and a half. Next, I will start shooting for the Dhak Dhak sequel.