Exclusive! Parul Gulati talks about suffering immense pain after surgery, beating up Shreya Mehta on Girls Hostel 3.0 sets

Girls Hostel 2.0 was dedicated to ‘Zahira Ali’ Parul Gulati. She has become the president of the student council despite the circumstances. Zahira beat ‘Ramya Mantri’ Shreya Mehta to get the position and in Girls Hostel 3.0, they beat each other even physically. Recalling the scene, which also made it to the trailer, Parul told OTTplay that she actually got carried away and beat up Shreya for punching her face right after surgery.

The actress also spilled some details on what this season will bring for her character and her bond with Srishti Srivastav and Ahsaas Channa. She also told us about her future projects and whether she’s ready for a Bollywood movie now.

Excerpts from the interview…

Zahira Ali has become an important part of Girls Hostel 3. What can we expect from her this time?

I'm the president of the student council, right? In movies and shows, you always see that someone has won. Season 2 ended on the fact that I am the president. What after that? What are the hardships you face when you are in an all-girls hostel? Do you get what you ask for? There's politics but everyone plays a different character, right? At the end of the day, it's all fun and comedy too. How Zahira is dealing with her responsibilities in the midst of that, you will get to see that this time. I wouldn't say more than that. It's basically Zahira in the next year of college now.

You gained massive popularity since Girls Hostel first released and that hasn't stopped. Not only the show but also your character has become popular. What does that feel like?

It feels amazing for two reasons. One, we created a universe of Girls Hostel. It takes two-three days but once we settle in, it feels like we never left. We are really good friends - Srishti, me, Ahsaas and Simran - too. It always feels good to work with the people you really love. It was exciting and since we have a real-life bonding, that reflects in the show and people love that a lot. We constantly reflect on how people should fall more in love with us.

Tell me about the friendship. Did the bond develop in the first season or second?

We had not planned for how the first season grew. We would shoot for one episode and then go back to our lives. We connected more after the show received so much love. It was after season one. We exchanged the massive love the show received. People especially loved Jo and Zahira's character. For the first time, women saw other women that they could relate to. It was our common ground to meet. We had our success party and dinners. We grew way closer in season 2. It was more of establishing our friendship.

So now that season 3 is coming, can we say you all are like sisters now?

We're like best friends who can sit together in a room and still, everyone will be on their phones. We're that friends.

When you're best friends, you meet each other anywhere and anytime. It starts off from where you left off. If you are together on sets for a month, you know you have each other's backs. So, we're not trying to establish anything now.

You tell me and the show has this concept where there are funny scenes. So, did you ever break character while shooting? Maybe you broke into laughter where you shouldn't have or the likes of it...

We girls know each other since three-four years. We know who says what. We know every little detail of a person. We know that if someone is taking four minutes longer to give a shot, they would be making an IG story. If it were Ahsaas, she would be on Instagram. These kinds of things happened a couple of times. Somebody is lost in their own space.

I broke character once. There's a fight scene between me and Ramya Mantri. I was hitting Ramya, played by Shreya Mehta. Her hand really hit my face. So, I started screaming and told her she can't do that. We had a massive fight because I had come out of a surgery. I was in pain. My mouth was paining and she hit there directly. That was a moment that was a lot for everyone.

Did you ever get so involved in the scene that you forgot to be your true self, out of the sets?

It was right after that moment. I actually fought with Shreya. The fight between Zahira-Ramya and Parul-Shreya was mixed at that point. You can tell.

I was pissed. It was like ‘You hit my face? Aaja abhi!’ We sorted it out but yeah, in that moment, I had totally forgotten it.

What's next for you?

I have a couple of other shows which are very different. I hope those projects reach the right people. That will be a huge deal. There are so many releases that some projects get lost. I just hope my work reaches the people. I've grown as a person and that's what I bring to my characters.

Are they web series? Are they announced?

No, they haven't been announced. The two releases I have after this are web shows only.

Any plans to work in movies? Is that happening?

No, nothing is in the pipeline. Definitely I want to do a movie because we all dream about coming on the big screen, when we migrate to Mumbai. That is my dream too. I haven't done a Hindi film but hopefully soon.