‘Rajesh Khanna would drive away, women would put sand in their maang’: Janhvi Kapoor says they ‘wouldn’t do it for anyone today’

Actor Janhvi Kapoor reacted to the assertion that ‘Bollywood celeb worship culture’ is dead in this age of social media stardom. The actor said that her father, producer Boney Kapoor, has told her stories about what true stardom used to be like back in the day, and that this shift in culture might inspire filmmakers to focus on stories and not stars.
In an interview with Galatta Plus, Janhvi was asked what she thinks about the claim that ‘everybody is a star in this age of Instagram’ and that ‘people keep moving on’. She said, “I think it’s accurate. But I don’t think it’s a bad thing at all. People keep saying that they want to become stars, but your profession is to be an actor. There was a phase in our cinema where aspirational icons and aspirational cinema really… I remember papa telling me stories about how Rajesh Khanna’s car would drive away and women would take the sand and put it in their maang. I don’t think they would do that for anyone today.”

Janhvi emphasised that this is not a bad thing. She added, “Our job description is to tell stories, to move people with our performances. I think that that can be divorced from our personality… I think the only dent that this might cause in our industry is that the opening that a star guaranteed might not be the same. Which is good, because it might motivate people to get off their a**es to write films that are compelling, as opposed to just saying, ‘Acha, yeh hero hai, film ko itne budget mein bana denge, do gaane daal denge, opening toh mil jayegi‘.”
Janhvi made her acting debut with the 2018 film Dhadak. She has since starred in Zoya Akhtar’s film in the anthology Ghost Stories, the war drama Gunjan Saxena: The Kargil Girl, the horror comedy Roohi, the crime comedy Good Luck Jerry and most recently, the survival thriller Mili. Up next, she’ll be seen opposite Varun Dhawan in director Nitesh Tiwari’s Bawaal.