SHRADDHA KAPOOR WHAT'S NOT TO LOVE?!

The actor talks to Cosmo editor Pratishtha Dobhal about her support system, believing in magic, and if it gets lonely at the top.

- Pratishtha Dobhal

"Stay please. I am not letting you go anywhere. You are stuck with me!" Shraddha lets out her signature ebullient laugh-free, fluid, charming, and unpretentious-at the anniversary cover shoot, where we end up having quite the Carrie Bradshaw-esque Sex and the City hang. I wonder what's an appropriate way of asking her if I need to leave while she is changing, but without any qualms, she continues to chat while trying out one look after another.

Rare for an actor and celebrity of her stature and filmography to be so casj. Even though we are meeting for the first time, it feels like we are planning quite a rager, shuffling through the racks and accessories neatly lined up, which, tbh, is what it exactly felt like with her on set.

Striking to look at even in sweats and a tank, my instinct tells me she is used to operating at a frequency that is playful but very centred, much like the good old plug in and play of binaural beats that are highly meditative, but especially relaxing. She breezes in and out of the lights, camera, and "play my favourite song" spotlight, leaving a contagious trail of "let's have fun, even though this is serious work" energy.

Congratulating her on the mind-bending historic box office success of Stree 2 (2024), before I head to the airport and she starts to get ready for an event, she gives me the warmest hug, promising to get on a call for our impending interview soon.

And the day comes when we chat not once, but twice in a day, because there is so much to process about the most followed actor and celebrity on the gram and one of the highest paid actors in the country-Shraddha Kapoor. She routinely punctuates her answers with gratitude, making it abundantly clear that she isn't taking all of the love and adulation for granted, and in the gentlest of ways, perhaps, has it all figured out.