'Shahid was protective of me'

Sister act

She is from a family of power-packed actors and always knew that she wanted to be an actress herself. Sanah Kapoor, who is the daughter of the talented Pankaj Kapoor and Supriya Pathak and sister of heart-throb Shahid Kapoor, is ready to debut in Bollywood with ‘Shaandaar’, which hits screens in a few days.

   “I am super excited but also nervous as people have high expectations from me,” says Sanah, who shares the screen with her brother Shahid in the film.

    “‘Shaandaar’ revolves around a destination wedding and it is my character’s wedding that everyone is attending. I play Alia’s (Bhatt) sister Esha, who is overweight and has to go through certain struggles.” 

While most actresses end up losing weight for their roles, Sanah put on 15 kilos to play an overweight character. “I was always a plump baby. While I lost all the kilos as I grew up, for ‘Shandaar’, I put on weight again and now, I have lost it all again,” she laughs.

     In an industry where most newcomers want to make a glamourous debut with the spotlight being on them, Sanah is different.

    “By choosing the role of a second lead like this, I wanted to prove that it’s not difficultto be different. Besides, sheis overweight and we live in a society where we are judged for being fat or skinny, fair or dark.

Many boys and girls struggle with these things and I want to tell them anyone can be different and it’s okay. Moreover, I fell in love with the character and wanted to take her off the pages and make her a reality,” she says. 

Despite coming from a family of actors, Sanah is still getting used to the limelight. “The attention was always there but never on me. I would usually avoid getting
in the way of fans whenever they approached my family members and would be the one to click pictures,” she remarks. But she’s happy that even the makers of the film didn’t know that she hailed from a film family.

    “Since I have always been away from the limelight and don’t attend parties, I got the role on my own merit and that was probably the biggest achievement for me,” she exclaims. 

    Did she take her family’s advice on choosing the film? “We do talk about acting in general at home and it’s a good thing that I have grown listening to all these discussions. But when it comes to professional decisions, I make them on my own,” she says. 

    How was big brother Shahid on the sets? “He was protective of me and would often give me advice but he never went out of his way. He was like a security blanket that I could use whenever I wanted,” she says.

Sanah is still in talks with a couple of filmmakers for her next film.

   “I have been reading some material and want to do good work. I don’t mind getting into any character or genre. I’d like to mould myself into different characters. But for now, till the movie hits the screens, I am nervously pacing up and down,” she laughs.

    “It was scary enough to share the screen with talented actors like Alia and Sanjay (Kapoor), let alone your brother,” she says.