Ridhi Khakhar on bagging The Whistleblower: It was a lot of analyzing and self-actualization

Ridhi Khakhar is a model and actor, who has paved her way from Dubai to Mumbai to become an actress. She made her acting debut with the Netflix project Lust Stories under the directorial of Anurag Kashyap. Then she got to play an NRI student in Reject X for Zee 5 and recently she was seen playing a pivotal character in Whistleblower on Zee 5. 

What is your character in the show, The Whistleblower? Elaborate about your character.

I played the character of Prachi, a mischievous younger sister to Ankita Sharma in the show  She  definitely has the baby sister syndrome. She’s protected and spoilt. She’s the cute baby sibling in every family who knows exactly how to get their way by being just cute enough. People might assume she’s manipulative and controlling but she’s really naïve. In fact, she believes she has controlling powers but outside her families boundaries these powers don’t exist. She makes some really dumb decisions, just like a naïve child who’s always been protected. She never seems to calculate the risk or consequences involved. You can see her shocked every time she has to deal with the consequences because it’s just so new and unknown to her. It’s like her family forgot to mention that she won’t be protected in the outside world. 

How did you bag the project? 

I had gotten a call for the audition but at that time I was not in the country. I ended up sending a self test and got shortlisted. It was a pretty smooth process. Manoj sir, the director of our show, and I then discussed the show on the phone and he ended up locking me for the character. 

Any special preparation for the role?

Yes, analyzing my own place in my family and amongst my siblings, particularly since I’m the baby sister of the family. I had to dig deep and understand how each member of my family treats me and how I’m different compared to my older siblings. It was a lot of analyzing and self-actualization. 

How much did you bond with your co-stars?

I had scenes with Ritwik Bowmik and Ankita Sharma. Both of them were such lovely actors to work with and extremely motivating since they were much more experienced than I was. I particularly bonded with Ankita and we had a lot of fun behind the scenes. She’s a lovely person to work with.

Any funny or special incident/experience from sets that you would like to share.

There was a scene from The Whistleblower in which my character had to execute a dissection on a corpse. The actor playing the dead body couldn’t close his eyes without flickering them. It was too funny to watch and I couldn’t control my laughter at that time.