I feel so much freer today: Kirti Kulhari on life after 'Four More Shots Please!'

Actor Kirti Kulhari says her Amazon series "Four More Shots Please!" had a profound effect on her at a personal level. The actor plays the role of Anjana, a successful lawyer and a single mother, in the show, whose second season dropped on Friday.

Kirti said in the course of two seasons, she has learned a lot from her character. "I personally love this show, not because I'm a part of it. I'm genuinely very proud of the show for what we are trying to do and for the different things that we are trying to show.

"It really has impacted me personally as well. It's impossible to not learn from something that you're a part of. As an actor, you are growing with the character you're growing," Kirti told PTI. The show, created by Rangita Pritish Nandy, features Kirti, Sayani Gupta, Maanvi Gagroo and VJ-turned-actor Bani J as a quartet of friends and follows their relationships, work-life conflicts, ambitions, and anxieties in a male-dominated society.

The actor said she has started to question everything in her life, from faith to politics, and in the process, she has dropped things that didn't make sense to her. "I have questioned my own belief systems, my own ideologies, my own conditioning when I started being a part of the show. Whatever came up, I have questioned myself at every stage. Whenever things didn't make sense or I didn't make sense or the conditioning didn't make sense, I have dropped them. 

"So, I think I have turned into a person who's much more open to different kinds of people, to the choices they make and to the idea of freedom of choices," she said. Kirti added that she has become "less of a judgmental person." "I don't judge people for what they do in life because I know that behind every decision and every choice, there is a story and I have learned to look at it like that. 

"I've also become very comfortable with my own sexuality.  I have dropped all the things that I felt were not right or wrong or whatever. I feel so much freer as a person and as an actor. So I have become so easy with my own self and with everyone around me," the actor said. For the second season, it was a challenge for Kirti to found the emotional depth of her character.

"All my energies were going towards how to further develop the character which had such a powerful arc in the first season. How do you make it into a character that is everything? Of course, there is a script that you get. But how do you work on the emotional quotient of the character? 

"Whoever the character is, if it doesn't hold you emotionally, it doesn't make sense then. So finding that emotional depth is always a challenge. There is also the challenge to present something that the audiences haven't seen of me." The season two of "Four More Shots Please!" has been directed by Nupur Asthana, who has taken over from Anu Menon. The show also features Prateik Babbar, Lisa Ray, Milind Soman, Neil Bhooplalam, Simone Singh and Amrita Puri.