Starting out young
She may be the ruling the roost right now, but Alia Bhatt started off her career at 19 with Student of The Year (2012). Ask the actor if working from such a young age is a disadvantage, as she couldn’t lead a normal life, and she says, “No, in fact, I look at it the other way around. Since I started working so early and my job requires me to travel extensively, I have been to so many places and got to experience so many things I otherwise wouldn’t have.”
Speaking about “the journey” that she undertook across India for Highway (2014), Alia says she wouldn’t have done that on her own. “Who’s going to stand on top of a mountain and talk to clouds? You don’t get to do that in real life. I recently went to Singapore’s Universal Studios to shoot for Badrinath Ki Dulhania. I would have eventually gone there anyway, but where do you get the time for such things? So, this job takes you to different places and makes you do things that you wouldn’t do otherwise,” she says.
The 23-year-old, who just acted with Shah Rukh Khan for her new film, admits that she was “nervous for the right reasons”. She says, “I was excited, and it wasn’t because I was unsure of what I was doing. It was just that nervousness of him being there on the set. You also keep thinking ‘I hope I don’t mess up’ or ‘I deliver my dialogues correctly’. But all those inhibitions went away after a couple of hours,” she says.
I have been to so many places and got to experience so many things I otherwise wouldn’t have. ALIA BHATT, ACTOR