For Shriya Pilgaonkar, a role’s importance is not determined by how much of the story it occupies. The question is whether she can bring it enough weight and depth to matter. In a 2023 interview with Scroll.in, she traced that idea through her unexpected start on stage, the early jobs that did not become launches, and the varied characters she chose to play.
How Shriya Pilgaonkar found her way into acting
Pilgaonkar says her interest in acting became clear to her only after she performed in a stage play. Her parents, actors Sachin and Supriya Pilgaonkar, had not known she was drawn to the work. After seeing her perform in 2012, her father asked her to read a script he planned to direct.
The month of rehearsals made the difference. “I had to rehearse for one month for that play I did and in that one month I just felt more present, like this was using all of me,” she told Scroll.in. The stage experience was less a planned career move than a discovery of how fully the work engaged her.
Early screen roles without a conventional launch
Her early screen work included the Marathi-language film Ekulti Ek, where she played the daughter of her real-life parents, followed by an appearance in the Hindi film Fan (2016). She was clear-eyed about the latter: it was not a conventional hero-and-heroine launch, and she did not want to inflate the scale of her part. “I knew what my part was in Fan and I did not want to mislead anyone.”
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After auditions and projects that stalled or went to other actors, she landed the role of Sweety in Mirzapur. In the interview, Pilgaonkar described the series as a turning point that helped set further opportunities in streaming and film in motion. It did not erase the uncertainty that preceded it; it came after a stretch of waiting and trying.
Why Guilty Minds felt like an inflection point
Pilgaonkar identifies Mirzapur and Guilty Minds as important moments in her career. In Guilty Minds, she played Kashaf, a righteous lawyer. The role gave her room to feel recognized for what she could do at that stage of her career: “Guilty Minds gave me that scope where I felt like I was being seen for who I was at this point.”
She also discussed playing Radha, a news reporter, in The Broken News, and Madhu, a sex worker, in Taaza Khabar. Rather than settle into one kind of part, she said she wants to take on different characters. “As an actor, it’s my job to do different things.”
What drew her to Taaza Khabar
Pilgaonkar described Taaza Khabar as a chance to do something lighter and wilder. Her choice fits the wider range she said she wants from her work: moving between characters and tones instead of treating one successful role as a template for the next.
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How she judges a role’s potential
Her test is not simply how central a character is to a plot. If the story is not driven by her character, she asks whether she can give that character enough presence to carry weight. As she put it: “If I feel the narrative of the script is not driven by my character, I ask, do I have the potential to create that weight, that depth? Then that’s my challenge.”
That approach makes a smaller part an artistic question rather than automatically a lesser opportunity. It asks what the actor can contribute within the story the script actually tells.
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Pilgaonkar also spoke about the practical demands of auditions and the pressure of social media. She recognizes that online presence can be part of building a career, but does not want follower counts to define her work as an actor. “The hustle does not stop,” she said.
She remembers her father’s advice as a useful counterweight to the status attached to roles: “He always says that no work is too big or too small. If it’s small, you can make it big. I always remember that.” In her account, the principle is not that every role is equal in size, but that the actor still has a choice about how much depth to bring to it.
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This article draws on Udita Jhunjhunwala’s January 24, 2023 interview with Shriya Pilgaonkar in Scroll.in. References to projects described as upcoming in that interview belong to its 2023 context.
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