South star Jyotika says she is happy to return to Hindi entertainment, especially at a time when women are getting an opportunity to play well-written characters on OTT. The actor returned to Bollywood in 2024 with the supernatural thriller film Shaitaan, 26 years after her acting debut Doli Sajake Rakhna. (Also Read: Jyotika says she was upset when Suriya’s Kanguva got harsher reviews than other ‘pathetic’ South films)

Jyotika on returning to Hindi film industry

“It’s taken me 25 years to come back to Hindi. I can see the OTT’s boom and the kind of work, not just multi-language actors, but also all age groups of women are getting… a journey, I do not plan. I’m just flowing. And the flow is really very beautiful,” Jyotika told PTI.

The actor’s latest work is Netflix’s new crime series Dabba Cartel. It also stars Shabana Azmi, Nimisha Sajayan, Anjali Anand, Sai Tamhankar, and Lillete Dubey.

Directed by Hitesh Bhatia, the show follows five ordinary women and how their low-key dabba service spirals into an unexpected venture: a high-stakes drug delivery operation.

Jyotika said she resonated with the character of Varuna, a former corporate big shot with dreams of running a successful clothing franchise, as she had the face of “a common woman”.

“Real characters are the toughest to perform because when you see those roles, you see yourself in … I feel you have to be as real as you can and that attracts me to a character a lot. But they are very seldom well written.”

On female actors getting diverse roles

“The other factor which connected me to Dabba Cartel was the layering. I love the way it was written. And it was with ‘the Shabana Azmi’, which was the first factor. There is one scene of Ganpati where we share a solo frame, which is rare in the whole series. It was just the shot of the two of us, I got goosebumps seeing those two faces on screen,” she said.

Jyotika, known for films such as Kaakha Kaakha, Tagore, Chandramukhi, Mozhi and Kaathal – The Core, is happy that there is growth in the way roles are being written for women, even in male-led films.

“I think we are playing diverse roles. We are also making our mark in the bigger male-led films and now there is more prominence and more stories are being told. That’s absolute growth. And of course, we are being cast in all the languages and we are just moving out from our comfort spaces,” she said.

Gajraj Rao, Jisshu Sengupta, and Bhupendra Singh Jadawat also round out the cast of Dabba Cartel.