Kriti Sanon: “I Don’t Think I Would’ve Performed the Way I did in Bareilly Ki Barfi Had I Not Gone Through Raabta”

On her recent appearance on Film Companion’s Front Row, Kriti Sanon — who marks her tenth year in the Hindi film industry this year — was asked about her ‘favourite failure’. She replied, “My favourite failure, even though I don’t like calling it a failure because for me it wasn’t, is Raabta (2017). Even though Dinu [director Dinesh Vijan] might kill me!” 

Sanon went on to add, “That film in general made me grow a lot as an actor. It was my third film in the Hindi film industry. It was probably the first time I was getting that much meat as an actor. It had two characters for me. It was very layered for the first time. I was prepping a lot for a role for the very first time.” The actor also revealed how much she learnt over the course of filming Raabta, from horse-riding to chocolate-making, even briefly getting over her fear of being underwater. Sanon also believes the film helped her grow as an actor: “I feel like I grew with the way I started thinking about the character, with the way I started saying my dialogues. It became a lot more organic, a lot more real.”

Despite the critical and commercial failure of Raabta, Sanon maintains that “the film has a lot of happy memories that will always be very special.” She went on to say, “I don’t think I would’ve performed the way I did in say, a Bareilly (Ki Barfi, 2017), which worked at the box office, had I not gone through Raabta. I genuinely think I gained a lot as an actor and as a human being.” The actor concluded by reflecting on how our failures sometimes teach us way more than our successes.