Mrunal Thakur

While attending college, Thakur signed to portray Gauri Bhosle, the main female lead opposite Manit Joura, in the Star Plus series Mujhse Kuchh Kehti... Hai Khamoshiyaan. The show aired from 2012–13. Later in 2013, Thakur appeared in an episodic appearance on the mystery thriller Har Yug Mein Aayega Ek – Arjun, in which she played a journalist named Sakshi Anand.[3]

In February 2014, Thakur signed Zee TV's soap opera Kumkum Bhagya, for which she began shooting the following month.[4] The show, co-starring Sriti Jha, Shabir Ahluwalia, Arjit Taneja, and Supriya Shukla, started airing on 15 April, and saw Thakur portray Bulbul Arora, a woman who along with her elder sister (played by Jha) helps their mother (played by Shukla) run a marriage hall. The film received positive reviews from critics in critical reception. Thakur quit the show in January 2016. She then performed dance in a special episode of &TV's SauBhagyalaxmi, and took a retirement from television.[5]

In 2016, after quitting television, Thakur began filming for her first film—the international movie Love Sonia—which was completed by her in 2017.[6] Release date of the film was pushed several times, and it was finally released in September 2018. Her role was of Sonia, a village girl who brings to light the issue of global human trafficking. In preparation for the role, Thakur stayed at a brothel near Kolkata to study the body language of prostitutes. Despite of high expectations, Love Sonia failed commercially,[7] and received mixed reviews from critics.[8][9]

In 2019, Thakur made her Bollywood debut opposite Hrithik Roshan in Sajid Nadiadwala's production Super 30, based on the mathematician Anand Kumar (portrayed by Roshan in the film) and his program of the same name. In the film, she portrayed Kumar's love interest and was praised.[10] Despite a mixed reception, Super 30 became one of the highest-grossing Bollywood films of 2019, earning ₹2.08 billion (US$29 million) in global markets. Later in the year, she was cast opposite John Abraham in Nikkhil Advani's action thriller Batla House, a retelling of the 2008 Batla House encounter case about the story of a police officer Sanjeev Kumar Yadav (played by Abraham), who played a crucial role in the case. Thakur played Nandita, a journalist and the police officer's wife.[11] Her performance met with generally positive reviews from critics; the film proved to be successful grossing ₹1.32 billion (US$19 million) worldwide. In 2019, she also starred as the fictional character Sivagami in a spin-off series of the Baahubali film franchise,[12] named Baahubali: Before the Beginning.[13]

In 2020, Thakur appeared in the Netflix film Ghost Stories, an anthology horror consisting four segments.[14]