As ‘Mirzapur: The Movie’ continues its impressive box office run, actress Shriya Pilgaonkar finds herself celebrating a first, her debut 100-crore success on the big screen. For an actor largely associated with streaming projects in recent years, this response has strengthened her resolve to explore theatrical cinema more actively.
Shriya Pilgaonkar didn’t expect this scale
Talking about the ‘Mirzapur: The Movie’s unexpected success, Shriya Pilgaonkar admitted the team was optimistic but hadn’t anticipated such a massive response. She told Mid-Day, “With ‘Mirzapur’, we were hopeful, but we couldn’t have gauged this scale because it was an experiment. The series has a cult following, but the audience relationship with it has been through OTT and digital, so it was hard to know how that would translate into a theatrical audience,” she says.
For Shriya Pilgaonkar, box office collections are more than just numbers
For the actress, the real reward lies beyond the collection figures; it’s about watching her digital fanbase step into theatres for her. She said, “Box office is not about numbers alone. Essentially, it’s about the audience saying that we’ve come here because we are excited about the story and these characters. After getting love for my work on OTT, to see this translate into a theatrical space is definitely a different kind of validation, and I think that is important in this film industry.”The actress went on to share that she doesn’t box herself into a particular medium of entertainment. She said, “I’ve never wanted any medium to define me. The way I’ve navigated my career has not been through strategy but purely through gut instinct and a curiosity to be part of good stories. However, because it’s an industry of perception, one must understand that the screen on which the audience watches you plays a big role in how they see you. Because I had done a lot of OTT in the past few years, I felt it was very important for me to widen my canvas and be able to do theatricals. At the end of the day, that does play a big role in perception within the industry as well as the kind of opportunities that may come your way.”
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Shriya Pilgaonkar says she is not moving away from OTT
Shriya Pilgaonkar clarified that her theatrical push isn’t a step back from streaming; rather, she wants the flexibility to work across formats. She said, “I don’t see doing films as moving away from OTT. It’s just that I want the freedom to be able to move between these mediums, genres and characters.”The actress added, “I think it’s important for an actor to be able to do different mediums because otherwise the industry can be very quick to box you as just an OTT actor. Good acting doesn’t necessarily always guarantee good work because positioning and mounting play a huge role in the quality of work that comes to an actor.”She further shared, “Doing a commercial film definitely plays a big role in perception and how people see you. For actors like me, who’ve done most of our work on OTT, having a commercial success by our side just puts you in a better position to be seen differently and to be seen as capable of also holding space on the big screen.”She concluded her words, saying, “The success of ‘Mirzapur’, I hope, is a message that casting good actors authentically to the script does pay off.”
More about ‘Mirzapur: The Movie’
Directed by Gurmeet Singh, the film features Pankaj Tripathi, Ravi Kishan, Ali Fazal, Divyenndu, Jitendra Kumar, Shriya Pilgaonkar, Shweta Tripathi, and Sheeba Chaddha. The movie was released in theatres on September 4, 2026.
