Actor Vipin Sharma says the most challenging aspect of his role in ‘Maharani 4’ was to convey authority as a politician up against Huma Qureshi’s main protagonist Rani Bharti. In the popular SonyLIV series, directed by Puneet Prakash, Sharma played the character of Prime Minister Sudhakar Sriniwas Joshi.

‘Maharani’ is a fictional story set in Bihar politics with Qureshi playing a housewife, who is appointed the chief minister of the state by her politician husband after he is jailed, a PTI report from New Delhi stated.

“The most challenging part was to play authority with grace and dignity because in my personal life, I’m not that kind of person. I am a bit more relaxed, fun, and casual. Puneet would often tell me, ‘Sir, you sit, people will come to you. You don’t have to go to people’. But it was challenging to understand how I have to hold my place,” he told PTI in a video interview.

Sharma reunited with his ‘Gangs of Wasseypur’ co-star Qureshi for the series and the actor said he had a great time working with her. “We’ve known each other for quite a long period of time, since ‘Gangs of Wasseypur’. I did a workshop with the entire cast for ‘Gangs of Wasseypur’ for 10 days, and that’s when I first met Huma. And she had just come from Delhi. And we stayed in touch. So I’m very happy that we got to work together.

“We did another film together, ‘Luv Shuv Tey Chicken Khurana’, directed by a very dear friend, Sameer Sharma. But we didn’t have a scene together. So this time we worked together, and it was great, actually.”

Sharma, who was also seen in ‘The Family Man 3’ as Sambit, the PM’s secretary, is an alumnus of the National School of Drama. He made his acting debut with Doordarshan’s television series ‘Bharat Ek Khoj’ in 1989.

The actor said he knew from childhood that he wanted to act but he took a break from the profession for 12 years. He made a comeback with the Aamir Khan-directed 2007 film ‘Taare Zameen Par’ as the stern father to Darsheel Safary’s character of Ishaan.

Sharma credits Irrfan Khan for convincing him to return. “Irrfan was a very big influence on me in regards to me coming back to acting… I always chatted with him whenever we met. I wasn’t acting at that time. But I would see his films, then ‘Maqbool’ came, and I saw it, and I got very excited. He said, ‘You know cinema, you should come back’. That’s when I decided to come back,” he said.

The actor was also seen in the Kapil Sharma-starrer ‘Kis Kisko Pyaar Karoon 2’. Sharma now hopes to direct a film from a script that he has written.