Anjali Anand, who shot to fame after starring in Karan Johar’s Rocky Aur Rani Kii Prem Kahaani, as Ranveer Singh’s on-screen sister, Gayatri, recently talked about the ‘plus-size’ label and questioned why it is not normalised. She also stated that people are still not ready to see her as a lead or a heroine.
Anjali spoke Fever FM, and said, “I’m doing that on the web, and in other spaces, but I’m not doing that in the film yet for the larger audiences to come to the theatre.” Further, while discussing the ‘plus-size’ label, she questioned why actors like Govinda and Hrithik Roshan—who look very different but whom she loves, perhaps Govinda even more—were never labelled that way.
She added, “Nobody would Rishi Kapoor a plus size actor, he is an actor. But for a woman, I’m always called Anjali Anand-a plus sized actor. I hate talking about it. We need to normalise it. People ask me why I don’t promote plus-size representation on the internet, and it’s because I don’t want to. I know I could make a lot of money from it, but I have never thought of myself as someone different.”
Further, Anjali stated that there is a lack of acceptance for women in the industry. She shared that she loves Chandni, where Sridevi, Rishi Kapoor, and Vinod Khanna—who all look different—are together. However, nobody questioned them because they are men.
“When a woman does something, a Silk Smitha character Vidya Balan is playing, then it’s like a hoo-ha, ‘OMG, look at her stomach, why? Why have we never asked men, ‘Is he a plus-sized actor?’ Have you ever seen someone call a man plus-sized actor? No. So why am I being called one?,” Anjali concluded.
On the work front, Anjali was recently seen in the Netflix show Dabba Cartel, starring Shabana Azmi, Jyotika, Jisshu Sengupta, Nimisha Sajayan, Gajraj Rao, Sai Tamhankar, and Shalini Pandey, among othes.
