Shriya Pilgaonkar says she ‘feels very bad about friendzoning’ Shah Rukh Khan in Fan, how the film’s failure impacted her: ‘Could it get any bigger?’

Shriya Pilgaonkar had the perfect debut with Shah Rukh Khan but she found success years later on an OTT platform.

Shriya Pilgaonkar made her debut with Shah Rukh Khan in Fan.

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Shriya Pilgaonkar says she ‘feels very bad about friendzoning’ Shah Rukh Khan in Fan, how the film’s failure impacted her: ‘Could it get any bigger?’

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Shriya Pilgaonkar had a dream debut in the Shah Rukh Khan starrer Fan but the actor’s career only took off after she appeared as Sweety in Prime Video’s Mirzapur. In a recent chat, Shriya said that at the time when Fan did not perform as well as expected, she did not know how to play the PR game so she could hype her entry into the entertainment business. She also spoke about how her debut checked all the boxes but things did not work out the way she had expected.

In a chat with Film Companion, Shriya said, “In terms of my first Hindi film, could it get any bigger? Shah Rukh Khan, playing his love interest, although sadly my character was friendzoning him and I still feel very bad about that. While the film was appreciated for trying something new, it didn’t do the usual YRF numbers.”

Shriya has previously talked about how she lost a few projects when Fan did not do as well as expected. She added here, “At that point, I did not have any idea about the PR game, or how to blow myself up before my first film, be on covers of magazines, the way things are done. So for me, I thought it’s going to be organic. A part of it was because I did not hype myself up before that. But I realised then that acting well is not enough. It’s many things at the same time, it’s also about perception.”

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Shriya is the daughter of veteran actors Sachin and Supriya Pilgaonkar and said that she was somewhat prepared for things to not always land in the right place. “They have emotionally equipped me to understand that this is the nature of the industry and the business. You can give your 200 percent and a project may not do well,” she said.

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