People Expect Me to Look Like I Did When I Was 19: Pooja Bhatt

Watch Pooja Bhatt talk about the unrealistic beauty standards Bollywood puts up for us.

(Photo: Altered by The Quint)

Pooja Bhatt will soon be seen in Alankrita Shrivastava's Bombay Begums, which drops on Netflix on 8 March. Bhatt will be seen acting after over a decade and her fans can't wait to watch. But through the years, she has opened up about how the film business is unforgiving.

In a press conference for sister Shaheen Bhatt's book launch, Pooja Bhatt spoke about how the industry only cares about how one looks on the inside and your waist is a certain number.

Talking to The Quint, Pooja Bhatt says she got to embrace herself all the more through her character Rani. "When I was first approached for Bombay Begums, I was quite taken aback that they even thought of me. Alankrita through us women in a room together and got us to really bare our souls and that became such a great trust exercise that as women we let our defences down. There was no posturing and there was no judgement that came from anybody. And I think it was wonderful to be given the privilege of playing a part where I was playing my age dealing with issues like menopause, ageing. And these are things that allow to be spoken about, and we don't with it especially in the commercial framework of filmmaking. I have a baggage of stardom. There's a generation of men and women who had my poster on the wall and then you don't want people to age because then your memories age."

Watch the video to find out more.

Video Editor: Veeru Krishan Mohan