Pooja Bhatt always wanted to go to a boarding school. She finally did, at 52. In her latest project—web series Big Girls Don’t Cry—the actor plays the principal of Vandana Valley Girls School. “I would wave at my cousins as they left for their boarding schools and wonder when I would be allowed to go to one,” she says, adding, “So, when I was told that the show would be set in such a school, I said yes. I wanted to be in this world. This time, of course, I got to be the principal. This was strange because I was constantly pulled up by authorities through my rebellious years.”Directed by Nitya Mehra, the show released earlier this month, and tells the story of eight girls who discover love and friendship as they come of age. Bhatt says the show helped her revisit her school days in many ways. The actor-director studied at an all-girls school in Mumbai. “I had a badge in school which read, ‘work is worship’. The adage has stayed with me till this day,” she says, adding, “My set is my temple, my church; work is everything.” On a lighter note, she feels going to a girl’s school was also fulfilling as the “coolest” boys were always outside her school. “If I had studied in a co-ed school, we might have ended up sharing the class with not-so-cool boys,” she quips.Bhatt started out early in films, making her debut with Daddy (1989), directed by her father Mahesh Bhatt. The film also starred Anupam Kher, Manohar Singh, Soni Razdan and Neena Gupta in pivotal roles. The actor was 17 then, and played a girl who has a difficult relationship with her alcoholic father, played by Kher. “It was designed to be shown on that small intimate medium of communication (Doordarshan) because my father wanted the story to go into every Indian home,” she says. “We also did Phir Teri Kahani Yaad Aayi (1993), which premiered on Zee TV. It was the OTT release of that time”Now, OTT has given Bhatt the means to make a return to acting. Her last film as an actor before she went on a long sabbatical, was Everybody Says I’m Fine! (2001), an Indian English-language film directed by Rahul Bose. She returned to the screens eventually with the Netflix show Bombay Begums in 2021. “In an entertainer’s life, you have four seasons of success,” she says, adding, “The first season is when you have potential; second is when they say you have arrived; then they say you are over, and finally they say that you are back. I have had the privilege of enjoying all four.”
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