For many millennials, actor Maanvi Gagroo first appeared on their screens through the Disney Channel series Dhoom Machaao Dhoom. Nearly 20 years later, she is now one of the most recognisable faces of India’s streaming era, with popular shows like Four More Shots Please!, Tripling, and TVF Pitchers to her name. After a six-year gap from theatres, as her last big-screen release was Shubh Mangal Zyada Saavdhan, Maanvi is returning to cinemas with Heer Sara. The film is a female-led road-trip drama co-starring Patralekhaa. Set in Pondicherry, it follows two very different women whose unexpected journey together becomes a story of friendship and self-discovery, releasing on June 12, 2026.
In a conversation with Hindustan Times, Maanvi spoke about playing her character Heer, how OTT platforms gave her career more freedom, and why stories made for women deserve the same seriousness as any other genre.
Finding the right balance for Heer
Although Maanvi has portrayed lively and energetic characters before, she admits Heer required a much finer balance than she had anticipated. “I was very worried because I didn’t want to make this character so loud that she gets annoying. With bubbly, talkative characters, there’s a very fine line. It can very easily get on your nerves,” she said.
To ensure the character felt authentic rather than overwhelming, she worked closely with writer and director Kartik Chaudhry throughout the shoot. She said, “I asked him, ‘You have to help me find her voice. Please tell me if it’s going too high or too low.’ Initially, I played her very subtly and Karthik kept saying, ‘Open up, open up.’ Then later he would come and tell me, ‘Now it’s getting too shrill, bring it down a notch.’ We worked together to find that balance.”
Like many actors, she believes understanding a character is often an evolving process that continues well into the shoot. She added, “You come prepared with a notion of how you’re going to play the character. Then there are so many other factors that come into play. By the third or fourth day, you begin understanding how that particular set functions, how the director works, and how to oil that machine.”
Why she waited six years for a film
While Maanvi’s popularity continued to grow on streaming platforms, many wondered why she had not appeared in a feature film for several years. For the actor, the answer lies in how OTT platforms transformed her relationship with work. She said, “One of the best things OTT did for me was that I was no longer hungry to do a film just because it was a film,” she explained. “Earlier there was television or movies. So you felt like, ‘I’ll do any film as long as it’s a film.’”
Streaming gave her something she didn’t always have earlier in her career — the luxury of choice. “With OTT, I realised I could actually do projects that I wanted to do and liked. I had the luxury of choice,” she added.
That freedom also meant turning down opportunities that didn’t align with her personal beliefs. She said, “There were films where I didn’t agree with the politics of the film — and when I say politics, I mean gender politics mostly. Or my character wasn’t really adding any value to the story. Then I felt I’d rather wait.”
Why female-led films are still treated differently
One topic Maanvi spoke about passionately was the way films led by women continue to be categorized differently from those led by men. “We don’t say male-centric film,” she pointed out. “That’s just called a film. But when women lead it, suddenly it becomes a female-centric project.”
For her, labels themselves are not necessarily the problem. The issue is the value society assigns to them. “It’s okay to have labels. The problem starts when one label is considered better than the other.”
She pointed to the term ‘chick flick’ as an example. “To dismiss something as a chick flick but glorify an action film is the problem. There are good chick flicks and bad chick flicks. There are good action films and bad action films,” the actor said.
What frustrates her most is the tendency to belittle things that women enjoy. “Anything women enjoy tends to be looked down upon. Fashion, makeup, TV shows, kitty parties — all of it gets dismissed,” she added.
Watching female fandoms evolve
Few projects demonstrated that shift more clearly than Prime Video series, Four More Shots Please!. According to Maanvi, the response from women changed dramatically across the show’s three seasons. “Season one, women would come up to us and say they loved the show almost secretly,” she recalled.
By the second season, viewers had become more open about their affection for the series. The actor went onto say, “They’d say, ‘I’ve made my husband watch it’ or ‘I’ve made my boyfriend watch it.’”
And by season three, she noticed a complete transformation. She added, “They had reached a point of complete ‘f*** you’. They were shouting from rooftops that they loved the show and didn’t care what anyone thought. We need to keep making content for women. That’s how change happens.”
And she has little faith that the industry will change on its own. “Women need to change that, because the men aren’t going to do s**t,” she said.
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