Sparsh Shrivastava, Pratibha Ranta and Nitanshi Goel became household names after the release of Kiran Rao’s Laapataa Ladies. The film received widespread appreciation and is India’s official entry for the Oscars 2025. The trio recently joined Filmfare’s Editor-in-Chief Jitesh Pillaai for an exclusive conversation for the show In The Ring With Filmfare. During the candid conversation, Goel revealed the best advice she received from Aamir Khan, who produced the film.
Nitanshi was 14 when she started working on the film. She recalled meeting Khan for the first time when she was invited for lunch after the auditions. The actress shared, “The first time I met Aamir sir and Kiran ma’am was right after my audition. They had called me for lunch, and I was all over the place. I was so nervous because Aamir sir was sitting right in front of me and he was asking me about my life – where do I stay, what do I do, what would I want to do in the future? And after a point I was chilled, and I became chatty with him. And he said, ‘Never lose this. It’s okay, you don’t have to be prim and proper. You be like this and don’t worry, people will love you for this.’ And that just stayed with me because sometimes right before interviews or when I meet important people, I think about what I should say. Sometimes, if I speak my mind, then people understand it. That’s one beauty Aamir Khan asked me to keep.”
Nitanshi played the role of Phool, a child bride who gets lost on her way to her in-laws’ house. She gets exchanged with Jaya (Ranta) and both the women try to find their way back to where they belong. The film is India’s entry for the Best International Feature Film for the 97th Academy Awards which will be held in 2025.