Actor Janhvi Kapoor is ready for her debut survival thriller, Mili. It is releasing this Friday. Ahead of the film’s release, she described how the month-long shoot for the film affected her physical and mental health. In the film, she plays a girl who is stuck in a storage freezer for hours.

It is directed by Mathukutty Xavier. The film Mili is the Hindi remake of the filmmaker’s 2019 Malayalam hit Helen. Based on true events, the film traces Janhvi’s struggle as Mili. She races against time to survive inside a freezer. According to the actor, the film team built a special freezer, where they shot for 20 days at a temperature of minus 15 degrees Celsius.

She recalled the experience. She told, “I remember it (film) taking a genuine toll on my mental health because I would come back home after wrapping up shoot and I would go to sleep and dream that I was still in the freezer. I fell ill and I was on severe painkillers for two-three days and even the director was unwell.”

“If you spend 15 hours of your day in a freezer in a closed environment crying for the majority of the day, sometimes with a rat that keeps nibbling your fingers, it is not glamorous for sure,” said she. She said that she was asked to gain 7.5 kg for the film according to the director to look more relatable to the audience.

Apart from Janhvi, Mili stars Sunny Kaushal and Manoj Pahwa in lead roles. This is Janhvi’s first professional collaboration with her father Boney Kapoor, who is supporting the film. The film will hit the theatre screens on November 4, 2022.