‘An artist needs to remain vulnerable’

Actor Ayushmann Khurrana, who once again excelled as an average Joe in Chandigarh Kare Aashiqui, on trends in the Hindi film industry and what the future holds for him

One of the most remarkable characters of 2021 was Manu Munjal, the cocky weightlifter from Chandigarh who falls in love with a trans woman in Chandigarh Kare Aashiqui.

For Ayushmann Khurrana, who has made a habit of playing flawed characters with aplomb, once again, portrayed the inability of Manu to process the reality that his girlfriend was once a boy.

“I always look at the script first and then my character,” he says. “Manu mirrors an average Joe on the street who is not woke, who has no idea what the life of a trans person is and what the trans community looks and feels like. Being a Chandigarh boy, I know many such characters. He gets cold feet when he discovers that the girl he loves used to be a boy. It is very important for him to be like this because if Manu Munjal the character can transform, anybody can in India.”