Bollywood star Janhvi Kapoor recently opened up about living with the nepotism tag all her life and how it stemmed self-doubt in her, saying, “There’s this doubt that ‘Did I really do it that well or are people praising me just like that?’”
As per a report in The Indian Express, she said that the privilege has already bogged her down. She recalls, “I have been overtly aware of my privilege since I was a kid. It’s not as if nepotism began to exist for me when I entered the film industry. It has existed since I was a kid. At school if I got good grades or if the teacher would compliment me in front of the class, there would be students who would go like, ‘Arey because your parents are famous that’s why she is sucking up to you.’”
She added that, as a result, she not only remains sceptical of any praise coming her way, but also judges herself before anyone else does. She said, “I have gotten that (reminder of privilege) all my life. It was always in my head that I have to do more to prove myself, to overcompensate… Or that self doubt… I have always carried that with me fortunately or unfortunately.”
“I understand where people are coming from. Maybe I didn’t give them enough to feel convinced that she deserves a place in the industry, when Dhadak came. For some people, I did. For some, I didn’t. I think more people got convinced after Ghost Stories. A little more after Gunjan. And I hope a little more after Roohi. But that’s what you do, you keep working. I am happy that’s been and is my journey because it motivates me to work harder,” Janhvi said on her cinematic journey till now.
Calling the constant pessimism and scrutiny too “disorienting” to make sense, she said, “The process of the film releasing was something that made me mature because it came out at a time when there was a lot of shit going around but you had to navigate through that and your moral compass had to point north. You need to have your head in the right place and you need to focus on the positives and believe in yourself somehow.”
Veering between glorification by a foreign review and backlash by an anonymous troll, she stated, “It was weird. I read a review, which was acting as If we have changed the world or that I have arrived. Then I read some random Twitter comment that read like forget deserve to act, I don’t deserve to live. So, it was disorienting and there were two extremes and I don’t know if anyone had to deal with it. You need to know where you stand. It taught me a lesson to not take the praise and the backlash seriously.”
“You need to know what you did right, good and bad, what you need to work on, what you need to show more. You have to gauge that for yourself. No one’s going to tell you that honestly, except your father and sisters,” she concluded.
What do you think of her revelations? Tell us!
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