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'Mentality needs to change': Genelia calls out Bollywood
12 Jun 2025

Actor Genelia Deshmukh recently opened up about the lack of opportunities in Bollywood after her marriage.

Speaking to Filmymantra, she said, "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."

'Filmmaking has changed...so should our mentality'
Casting concerns

Deshmukh further stressed the need for age-appropriate casting in films.

She said, "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."

Khan addressed the age-gap casting debate
Age gap

In Sitaare Zameen Par, a remake of the 2018 Spanish film Campeones, both Khan and Deshmukh play characters in their early 40s.

While Khan is 60 and Deshmukh is 37 now, he dismissed the age difference as a concern, attributing it to modern technology and audience acceptance breaking taboos around age-gap casting.

The film will release on June 20.

Deshmukh's journey in Indian cinema
Career path

Deshmukh made her Bollywood debut with Tujhe Meri Kasam in 2003 and later became a household name with Khan-backed movie Jaane Tu... Ya Jaane Na (2008).

Her first Tamil film was Boys (2003), followed by Satyam (Telugu, 2004), Satya in Love (Kannada, 2008), and Urumi (Malayalam, 2011).

She also made her full-fledged Marathi acting debut in Ved, directed by her husband Riteish Deshmukh.