Ananya Panday, who celebrates her 24th birthday today, made a dream debut with Karan Johar's Student Of The Year 2. The GenZ star has a come a long way in her career since then, however, one thing that has been constant in her journey is “Nepotism”.
She has been brutally trolled for being a product of nepotism. However, the star kid has been quite upfront about it and she herself admitted it does give her some advantage than others.
In an interview with an online portal, Ananya said, "The fact that I can meet a Karan Johar is something that is available to me because of my parents. But I also believe you can have the access but what you do in that room is purely dependent on your talent. If you have access and don’t have the talent to back it up, people won’t invest their money in you. Having said that, I do believe nepotism exists and it exists in all industries, not just Bollywood."
Despite being trolled as a Nepo Kid and called out for her appearance when she started, though hurtful, it never deterred her from fulfilling her dream of becoming an actor.
She recalled about facing casual sexism in her initial days in the industry in The Ranveer Show.
She said it was ‘hurtful’ for her to hear such things. She revealed, “As soon as I started working, people started saying things like ‘you should fix this and fix that, like get a boob job or change something about your face. And, it is said very casually and not in direct words that you sometimes even don’t pick it up. They would say, ‘just fill up a little more. Put on some weight.'”
However, she has taken everything in her stride and worked with some of the top stars and directors in the country in movies like Gehraiyaan, Liger, Pati Patni Aur Woh.
Ananya Panday was last seen in Liger opposite Vijay Devarkonda. She will be next in Zoya Akthar’s Kho Gaye Hum Kahan alongside Adarsh Gourav. She will also be seen in the sequel of the super-hit movie Dream Girl opposite Ayushmaan Khurana.