Actress Janhvi Kapoor recently opened up about her time at an acting school in Los Angeles and why she feels she could have better utilised that time
Janhvi Kapoor
Janhvi Kapoor is one of the most popular actors from the current generation of Bollywood celebrities. The actress has an interesting line-up of films to look forward to this year including 'Sunny Sanskari Ki Tulsi Kumari', 'Mr and Mrs Mahi' and the pan-India film 'Devara'. Before joining the film industry in 2018 with the film 'Dhadak', the actress studied the art of performing at an institute in Los Angeles. However, she recently revealed that she did not learn anything from there. In a recent interview, Janhvi shared that she went to Lee Strasberg Institute in Los Angeles but their approach to educating their students was focused only on Hollywood.
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Talking to The Week, Janhvi said, "I learnt nothing there". She said that even though living in LA was fun and the school was great, it did not help her much. However she did enjoy living at a place where she was not recognized as Sridevi and Boney Kapoor's daughter. “My main agenda, and I think the thrill in it for me was… for the first time to be in an environment where I wasn’t being identified as someone’s daughter. And I think that anonymity was so refreshing and that’s what I held on to the most,” she said.
Janhvi further spoke about how the format of the school in LA did not align with Indian cinema. "The format of the school that I studied over there was very deep rooted in how Hollywood works, how their auditioning process is, what it’s like to meet casting agents,” she said.
“I wish I could have used that time getting to know my people and my country and my language a little better because I am telling the stories of my people, not of them,” she said and added, “I just wish I did more things that would make me relate to my people and I did. Once I started shooting for Dhadak, I made a 180 and I realised that the only thing that matters is, that I want to tell stories of my country, I want to know the people of my country, I want to be able to speak to them, I want to be able to think like them, feel like them and sitting in LA, going to Malibu on the weekend isn’t going to cut it. It just makes you so detached and jaded.”