Janhvi Kapoor, who made her debut in 2018 with ‘Dhadak’, has been in the spotlight throughout the year - thanks to multiple film releases and ‘Homebound’ becoming India’s official entry to the Oscars. Ever since her debut, which came just months after the death of her mother, Sridevi, Janhvi has consistently taken up projects that push her as an actor - be it ‘Gunjan Saxena’, ‘Good Luck Jerry’, ‘Mili’ or ‘Mr and Mrs Mahi’. Yet for the longest time, she felt that despite the opportunities and fame, she still hadn’t earned people’s respect. That, she now said, has changed.
In 2023, during an interview with Barkha Dutt for ‘Mojo Story’, Janhvi confessed that she craved respect. In her recent appearance on the same show, she shared how her perspective has evolved. She now firmly believes that ‘nobody will respect you until you respect yourself’.
“Over the past couple of years, one thing I have learnt for sure is that unless you respect yourself, nobody else will. Fame came easily to me because of whose daughter I am. So, I never felt that I wanted eyeballs or reach - I got all of that anyway. I was just waiting for the day someone walked up to me and said, ‘I respect you’. But honestly, until you recognise your own skill set and what you bring to the table, nobody else will,” she said.
In the same interview, the 28-year-old actress revisited the painful period following her mother’s death, an experience she saw reduced to insensitive jokes and memes online, all just months before her debut.
“The phase I went through then is something I will never be able to fully verbalise. Even if I told you everything, I don’t know if anyone would relate. I am always conscious about sounding like I am saying things to make people feel bad for me, so I refrain a little. I know everyone wants a headline and I would hate to sound like I am using such a painful part of my life - or my relationship with my mother - for that. So that always holds me back,” she said.
Recalling what she calls the darkest phase of her life, Janhvi condemned the voyeurism of today’s media landscape. “The voyeuristic nature of journalism, media culture and social media has single-handedly contributed to the derailment of human morality. When I lost my mom, it was horrible. I don’t know if anyone can imagine how it feels to lose someone so close and then watch it become a meme. I don’t even know how to compute it. And it’s only gotten worse. We saw what happened with Dharam ji. It’s happened repeatedly before and will only keep happening. And we are part of the problem - every time we give such videos or headlines views, comments and likes - we incentivise this culture.”