The trailer launch for Netflix's Shaque: Trust No One ran late into the evening in Mumbai on Wednesday, testing the patience of the assembled press. Parineeti Chopra more than made up for it once she got to the mic.

Asked how she'd have approached the show differently had she known she was pregnant before shooting began, Parineeti didn't dodge. "That's a great question," she said, before wading straight into a conversation the industry has been having for a while now. "I know there's been a lot of debate in the industry about women being mothers and how that impacts projects. So, I do want to answer this question responsibly."

Her answer, in short: women actors are "women humans," and biology doesn't wait for a wrap party. "I can't wait for myself to retire at 50, 60 or 70 and then get pregnant, right?" she said. "So, it's always going to happen when I am working."

What she rejected was the idea of a single rulebook for the whole industry. "There cannot be a thumb rule for this," she said. "Every case is different and every project is different." In her own case, she said, a candid conversation with the makers of Shaque let her finish the shoot without the production getting compromised.

She was equally clear that the opposite outcome is just as legitimate. Sometimes, she said, the schedule, the locations or the creative demands of a film simply won't line up with a pregnancy, and the honest move is for the actor and the makers to walk away from working together on that particular project. "I don't think we should have a single thumb rule for pregnancy and motherhood," she said. "There can be discussions and solutions, which are case-specific. That's the only way forward, I think. Nobody should get too stressed about this."

Parineeti credited the Shaque team, led by director Rensil D'Silva and producer Siddharth P Malhotra, for building that flexibility into her schedule once she informed them of her pregnancy mid-shoot. "A little bit to my credit, I also pushed myself and did the best I could in my circumstances," she added, describing an ongoing back-and-forth over hours, travel and what was and wasn't possible on set.

The show itself sounds like it earned that effort. Shaque: Trust No One follows a mother's nine-year hunt for her missing child, and Parineeti was joined at the launch by Jennifer Winget, Tahir Raj Bhasin, Harleen Sethi, Anup Soni and Soni Razdan, along with Netflix's Tanya Bami.

Whether her comments shift the industry conversation beyond this one press event is a different question. Shaque: Trust No One lands on Netflix on September 24, and that's where the real test begins.