Celina Jaitly, who won Miss India in 2001, won the audience’s heart after her debut film Janasheen. Janasheen released back in 2003 and Celina was cast opposite Fardeen Khan. However, right now she is enjoying the success of her comeback feature, a Zee5 original called ‘Seasons Greetings.’ The actor made her comeback to the silver screen to fulfil her mother’s last dream who wanted Celina to win back her career at the movies.
Celina has clearly stated that she didn’t move away from the limelight and settle in Austria to look after her 3 children and husband, but it was, in fact, her inability to prove herself to the filmmakers to give her meatier roles. She believed that due to nepotism, she could not get the parts she deserved.
In an interview, she quoted “I was just tired and exhausted of how difficult it kept getting for an outsider to continuously strive to find the roles which celebrate the actor within.”
Even after delivering several hit films, Celina said that she could no longer be a people’s pleaser and it reached to a point where she just wanted to disconnect from it all and focus on other things to gain newer perspective and find other sources of happiness. She thought she will come back after her acting batteries are recharged and are ready for the rigmarole.
This shows the advantage that certain actors have due to their surname and the reputation that their families carry. The star kids get access to many powerful directors and producer who then sign them up for their upcoming films without testing new faces from aspiring actors. This also shows that even after an outsider has won the public’s heart, just like Celina, the treatment is yet unfair. They are constantly looked down upon.
All we can do is hope that the conversation around nepotism brings about serious changes and big banners give opportunities based on talent over everything else.
