MUMBAI:Actress Ratna Pathak Shah, who is enjoying the response to their recently released streaming series 'Happy Family: Conditions Apply', has shared that comedy opened up new avenues for her as an actor.

She added that in the absence of comedy, her body of work would have turned out to be that of a very serious actress, who does only intense roles.

The veteran actress recently appeared with her co-actress Ayesha Jhulka on a chat show. Ratna, who is known for her iconic role of Maya Sarabhai, said: "I was on my way to becoming a great tragic actress. Thankfully, 'Idhar Udhar' happened and I was relieved off this weight of becoming this 'great actress', aspiring to do Lady Macbeth. It gave me the chance to learn a skill."

According to her, acting is very skill-dependent, like good speech and the ability to perform with your body, as she told Film Companion: "I had very few of those skills, and I needed to learn them. Comedy gave me the chance to acquire those skills."

Further, she stated that she is "thankful and deeply grateful to Anand Mahendroo (producer-director) because he was the first person who thought I was capable of doing it."

When asked about manifesting being paired with her co-stars from the 90s, like Akshay Kumar, Salman Khan and Aamir Khan, Ayesha Jhulka said: "I always say that I would like the sequels of 'Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikandar' and 'Khiladi' to be made, with the same cast. I told Mansoor Khan (director of 'Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikandar') that when I met him a couple of months back. I said, 'you better start writing the sequel, we have to be in that'. And everyone was excited about it."