Genelia D’Souza is set to return to the silver screen alongside Aamir Khan in Sitaare Zameen Par, where she will portray his on-screen wife. The announcement of her casting was met with excitement. D’Souza has voiced her concerns about the bias against married actresses in Bollywood. She also revealed that she underwent three auditions for the role in Aamir Khan’s film.
In a candid interview, Genelia shared that while she received many congratulatory messages regarding her collaboration with Aamir, few acknowledged her accomplishment in earning the part based on her talent, “When people got to know I’m doing Sitaare Zameen Par, everybody said, ‘Oh my god! So lucky! You’re doing an Aamir Khan film!’. I said, of course, that’s Aamir sir’s bigness that he saw something in me. Of course, he made me audition. But you could also do that, right? You could also offer me a role.”
She went on to express her disapproval of the industry’s practice of sidelining married women, adding, “But you go as per the norms. Maybe you think I’m married, so I don’t need this character. I just feel filmmaking has changed, and so should our mentality. It’s very important that if you want a character of a certain age, you should cast someone of that age. When we cast an actor who’s much younger than the character I played, they can’t understand the little-little things of it. It’s important to cast right. And I hope opportunities go everyone’s way.”
Aamir Khan also recently addressed the age gap between himself and Genelia for the film. He stated, “We have the advantage of VFX now. Earlier, if I had to play an 18-year-old, I had to rely on prosthetics — like Anil Kapoor did in Eeshwar (1989), when he played an 80-year-old. Today, you can look 80 or 40 or 20 on screen with seamless visual effects. So, age is no longer a barrier for actors.”
Sitaare Zameen Par is the Hindi adaptation of the Spanish film Campeones and also a spiritual sequel to the acclaimed Taare Zameen Par. Both Genelia and Aamir will portray characters in their early 40s. The film is slated for release on June 20.