NEW DELHI - It may seem surprising, but Juhi Babbar, the daughter of veteran actors Raj and Nadira Babbar, was never offered any top-of-the-line role by Bollywood filmmakers. She has now settled for a role in TV series ‘Ghar Ki Baat’, a tribute to the 1980s hit sitcom ‘Ye Jo Hai Zindagi’.

‘I have too many things to do and don’t have the time to do mediocre stuff. What I was being offered in Bollywood was not up to my level and I was not keen on doing just anything. After all, I was not into acting for the sake of making money,’ Juhi Babbar told IANS.

Juhi made her big screen debut in 2003 with box office dud ‘Kaash… Aap Hamare Hote’ opposite singer Sonu Nigam, but she did not take up any project thereafter. The actress says it was because the kind of work she was being offered was ‘mediocre’.

Juhi is excited about being a part of ‘Ghar Ki Baat’, going on air Friday. It is being produced by Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan’s Red Chillies Idiot Box.

‘I was getting loads of TV offers, but I didn’t find any one of them interesting enough. Probably god wanted me to wait for the best. I didn’t even want to do TV. But with this show, the package and combination was too good to resist,’ she said.

Talking about her co-stars in the show - Ali Asgar, Sumeet Raghavan and Swapnil Joshi - Juhi said that she has been having a gala time shooting with them.

‘It has been wonderful working with these people. Luckily, they are from a theatre background too and understand how one works in theatre. All of us share a similar sort of spontaneity on the set. Besides, these people keep cracking jokes and are a huge source of entertainment,’ she said.

All the time while the actress was away from the arclight, she was doing what she likes doing best - theatre.

‘I love theatre. I have been doing it for so many years. I write, direct and act in plays. Then I worked with my mom in production. I held theatre workshops for children and adults. So actually, there was really no time to do films,’ Juhi explained.

Though she is busy with theatre and TV, the young actress is open to doing films even now.

‘I am ready to do films even now provided I get the sort of roles I want to do. Only if I like something, then I do it and I don’t even have a specific choice of role. Something should click - that’s it,’ she said.

On being asked whether there has been a film in recent times that she wished she would have been a part of, Juhi said: ‘There have been good films recently, but I wasn’t offered any of those. Actually, I don’t look at roles like that at all. I would never look at a role and think that - ‘Oh! I wish this was offered to me’. I am a very realistic person.’