Akshaye Khanna has a reputation for being a man of few words on set. Jitin Gulati, his co-star in Prasanth Varma's mythological project Mahakali, says that reputation didn't quite hold up the day they actually met.

In an exclusive conversation with Bollywood Hungama, Gulati recalled the first day of shoot, when he and Khanna properly interacted for the first time. "I had always heard that he's very reserved. But contrary to the perception, that particular day, he was very chatty," Gulati said, adding that the two spoke a fair bit while waiting through lengthy setup times. Khanna, he says, kept asking him what he made of the Dhurandhar teaser, which had just dropped at the time.

Gulati is quick to add a caveat. The chattiness, he suggests, was specific to that day. "Otherwise, I know that he's very reserved. He prefers to be focused and doesn't like to be distracted a lot," he said. Because both actors were under heavy prosthetics and makeup for their roles, Gulati says they rarely got a chance to sit together without it, even at lunch, meeting mostly during final rehearsals or on camera. Their earlier costume trials and look tests in Mumbai, he says, amounted to little more than a hello.

The interview arrives on the back of the Mahakali teaser, which Gulati describes as having landed to largely positive reception, something he says brings its own weight given the film centres on a Goddess. "The responsibility is also more because, firstly, we are talking about a Goddess," he said.

Gulati's own route to the film is a story of persistence. He says he began pursuing Prasanth Varma after watching Hanuman in 2024, tracking down his contact and sending across a showreel. That reel eventually reached Varma through a mutual contact on the Fauzi team, the Prabhas project Gulati had already signed. When people working on Mahakali later flagged a role that suited him, Varma realised he'd had Gulati's showreel all along and set up a meeting with director Puja Aparna Kolluru. A single conversation about Guillermo del Toro's Pan's Labyrinth and the film's tonal ambitions, Gulati says, was enough to convince him. He got the call the next day.

On the working dynamic between Varma, who wrote and conceived Mahakali, and Kolluru, who directs it, Gulati is clear about where authority sits. "While Prasanth sir is like the backbone of the film and oversees everything, Puja has the final say," he said, describing an arrangement he says he's also seen play out on Fauzi.

Mahakali is part of the Prasanth Varma Cinematic Universe that began with Hanuman. With the teaser already generating chatter, attention now turns to when the studio locks a release date and how much of that reworked prosthetic-heavy performance from Gulati and Khanna makes the final cut.