‘The film was compelling enough for me to let go of my insecurity’
After years of speculation, Sonam K Ahuja and her father Anil Kapoor are teaming up for their next project — Shelly Chopra Dhar’s Ek Ladki Ko Dekha Toh Aisa Laga. While Sonam is ecstatic to work with him in reel life, she says that if it weren’t for this film, she wouldn’t have been able to shed her inhibitions about working with her father.
“Ever since I entered the industry, I have always tried to make my own identity. You do get a foot in a door when you are so and so’s daughter but after that, it’s harder than anything else in the whole world. There are constant comparisons and expectations. Also, there are so few opportunities that people are like ‘why is she getting it’ but I do not ever blame anybody for thinking like that. Because there might be prettier girls, more talented girls and more fashionable girls in this world but for some strange reason, the universe decided that I should be born into this house in India and get the kind of opportunities that I have got. I have to make the best of it and not take it for granted,” says the Pad Man actor.
Though Sonam and senior Kapoor have been a part of an advertisement, by her own admission, she was always sceptical about playing his daughter on the big screen. But all of it changed when Sonam was offered this film as she says that it was almost impossible to imagine someone else playing these roles except for them.
“Honestly, I feel like nobody is irreplaceable. Anybody can come into anybody’s shoes but for some reason, I do not think anybody except for my father and me could have done this film. I hope I am not sounding immodest. There are others who could have done my roles in other films but this film, because it is a beautiful fatherdaughter story and the kind of relationship I share with my father, it felt natural. I don’t know if it’s a casting coup but the film was compelling enough for me to let go of my insecurity of working with my father,” Sonam says.
I honestly do not think that anybody except for my father and me could have done this film. SONAM K AHUJA, ACTOR