As Mirzapur: The Movie continues its strong run at the box office, Shriya Pilgaonkar is experiencing a milestone that feels unreal - her first 100-crore theatrical success. For an actor whose most substantial body of work over the last few years has been on OTT, the response to Mirzapur has reinforced her decision to consciously widen her canvas and return to theatrical cinema. With Haiwaan, starring Akshay Kumar and Saif Ali Khan and directed by Priyadarshan, also arriving this month, Pilgaonkar finds herself at a juncture where she is looking to move seamlessly between mediums without allowing either to define her.

“With Mirzapur, we were hopeful, but we couldn't have gauged this scale because it was an experiment. The series has a cult following, but the audience relationship with it has been through OTT and digital, so it was hard to know how that would translate into a theatrical audience,” she says.