Prajakta Koli : ‘The lines between Dimple and me are blurry’

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We might know her from her YouTube sketches, web series and films. But Prajakta Koli steadily continues to use her voice as a young influencer to champion different causes. The actor-influencer, along with Freida Pinto, has lent her voice to She Creates Change, a live-action animation film that promotes gender equality and the importance of education in women's lives through six stories of young girls around the world. The endeavour is backed by Room to Read, a global education non-profit tackling illiteracy and gender inequality, in partnership with Warner Bros. Discovery.

In celebration of International Women's Day, the short film series premièred on March 8, 15 and 22 in Asia. Now, as the project is set to screen at Tribeca Film Festival 2024, Koli says, "I was bowled over by the film. It is uncomplicated storytelling, but effective. When you work on something like this, you feel closer to the reality of people who live in this world. Films like this remind me of my social responsibility, something I want to prioritise at every step of my career."

Prajakta Kohli with director Akarsh Khurana and Rohit Saraf

Koli is currently shooting for the third season of Mismatched. She believes that the Netflix series' charm lies in how it is unabashedly romantic. "The beauty of Mismatched is that it's heartwarming and pure. Every day, we work towards holding on to the simplicity of it. Our director Akarsh Khurana and writer Gazal Dhaliwal intimately get what people expect from the show. They get the genre of young adult stories better than most people have in recent years. As a consumer of romance fiction, I haven't had my fill of the story even so many years later. The audience is bored of people talking at them; Mismatched speaks to them, not at them."

It has been two years since we last met her character Dimple Ahuja, a young ambitious, nerdy girl who finds herself torn between her heart and mind. How does she pick up her character after a long gap? "Dimple is someone I carry in my heart. In this season, she is older, but not necessarily wiser. Of the past three seasons, this is the most I have related to her. The other day, an AD [assistant director] asked me how I prep for Dimple. I actually don't. I have lived her for five years. The lines between where I end and she starts are blurry."