Smriti Z Irani and Sakshi Tanwar with Karan Johar

Karan: The world knows you as Tulsi, but today, I am going to find out the inner world of Tulsi. So how does it feel?

Smriti: It's quiet a chaotic life trying to juggle between too many things.  But then I have always believed that you have one life and I want to live my life to the fullest.

Karan: Ekta tells me her entire team was against casting you and it was only Ekta who supported the decision.

Smriti: Because I walked into her office in jeans and T-shirt and a jhola and chashma and kitaab. She just looked at me and said fine. That's all I heard from her. I thought that was the weirdest meeting.

Karan: Ekta has created icons out of the both of you, Tulsi and Parvati, and every woman in India wants to emulate you. How do you react to that euphoria?

Sakshi: I would say that a lot of credibility and responsibility have been attached to both of us because of the characters we are portraying, but to tell you very honestly, when this character was offered to me I didn't identify with it at all.

Karan: You play the same role everyday do you get fed up?

Sakshi: Fortunately, Karan, I am a very switch on-switch off performer, so I leave Parvati Agarwal in the Agarwal house after pack up and Sakshi goes home happily satisfied with her day's work. As far as being fed up is concerned, no I am not and for me it is like an exercise to make the scenes more interesting. It is a challenge.

Karan: And Ekta keeps it exciting killing the characters and bringing in new ones.

Smriti: You are getting me into trouble again! Once I told Ekta this is too much, how can I keep crying all the time? And she said, "You have to cry as my TRPs go up when you suffer!"

Karan: Oh god! The more you suffer the more people like to watch your show?

Smriti: What is wonderful about it is we have managed to connect with every household as a family. It's not just another show people watch.

This is a character that people relate to. I remember when the whole period when Mihir died and I was newly married with my chudas, and people used to hug me and cry and I had to tell them that I got newly married and the husband died in the show.

Karan: You want to play the lead role because you are used to it. So it's like coming into mainstream movies and getting lesser roles would bother the both of you I am sure.

Sakshi: Not me at least.