Juhi Chawla on why she chose to play a ‘mean’ character in ‘Gulaab Gang’

Juhi Chawla has always been seen in fun-filled and positive roles. Ask the bubbly actress as to what made her take on a negative role in Gulaab Gang, and she bursts out laughing, giving the clichéd line of having loved the script of the film, when director Soumik Sen read it out to her. At the end of it, she exclaims of her character, “She is just mean!”
It was on her insistence that the character was rewritten, adding some softness to it. “But the film kind of died. I told them to retain the original as that had a spark to it,” reveals the actress, who is awaiting the release of her first ever negative role in a 30-year old film career.
Another hurdle for Chawla, when signing the film was that being the ‘hero’ of the film, Madhuri Dixit Nene would have all the punch lines, along with a longer role, songs, dance and fights. “I thought if Madhuri gets to do everything, what am I doing besides being mean? But later I began looking at it differently. I thought if ‘I’ play this character, there will be a different spark to the entire film. It would also be a challenge for me. So putting aside my ego, I started enjoying my work,” said the actress, who was taught by Sen the art of being mean. In the film, she said, being mean is not about snarling into the camera, but about smiling or sometimes just cutting the person with sweet talk. “It was very refreshing for me, to give different expressions to those little twisted lines,” she laughs.