Today I know each and every joke on Draupadi: Pooja Sharma

Playing one of the most important characters in the mythological show Mahabaharat, Draupadi, might be giving an alltime high to actress Pooja Sharma, but this wife of of five Pandavs in the serial is also facing the side effects of playing such a character.

"My friends have made a group on a messaging application called Pooka Panchali, wherein they share jokes cracked on Draupadi. I think today I know each and every joke related to Draupadi. My friends pull my leg for having five husbands," laughs Pooja, who was in Lucknow, recently.

And even though Pooja is enjoying her recently found fame with Draupadi, she wasn't that keen to do the role initially. "When I first got a call to audition for Mahabharat, I laughed out loud because being a normal viewer, I always perceived mythological shows to be loud and funny and I didn't want to be in that space. So, I told them that I will come tomorrow but they insisted on my coming that very day since it was the last day of the auditions. So I somehow went for it and was told that the makers wanted me to audition for Draupadi and I again laughed ki out of all the characters why Draupadi? I thought is this what I really want to do? The transition in the mind came to me when I got my lines and I wore the costume. I then realized that the show and my character was not at all loud and larger than life. It was a very real character," says Pooja.

Telling us about the occupational hazard of being a television actor and that too of a mythological one, Pooja says, "Heavy jewellery, the rashes and the skin problems that follow with it is the occupational hazard that most of the actors in a mythological serial are facing. And nobody has it worst than Draupadi. Nobody has worn jewellery heavier than what I have worn. Nobody has worn costumes more elaborate than I have worn, like lehengas weighing nearly 25 kilos. I have done action sequences with heavy jewellery. I was like baaki sabki jewellery toh uttar gayi but was told ki tum toh Draupadi ho, tum jewellery nahi uttar sakti. Some days I used to cry because of it but then realized ki everyone in the serial is sailing in the same boat, even the boys have to wear it."