CRAZY, STUPID LOVE

For all that she's already lived through, you couldn't hold it against Janhvi Kapoor for being deeply cynical about fame, love and human nature. And yet, over a free-flowing chat, MEERA GANAPATHI discovers in her the soft hope of an old-school romance—and another layer to an actor who is done being watched and ready to be seen. Photographed by FARHAN HUSSAIN. Styled by DEVANSHI TULI.

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Janhvi Kapoor stumbled into the spotlight at a time when most of us were making our Orkut accounts. Old images-"family photographs" as she calls them—reveal a giddy little girl holding onto her superstar mother’s arm, happy just to be around her. In the internet explosion that followed, Janhvi soon found herself on the unforgiving end of fame—forced to grapple with loss and grief in the harsh glare of public opinion.

Eight years since her debut film and her mother's passing, Janhvi is no longer the ingénue. Relentlessly commented on for her obvious wealth and privilege, today her sensitive performances have surprised even her oldest detractors.

As an actor, her choice of roles exhibit a taste for challenge with characters as varied as Thangam in Devara and Sudha Bharti in the critically-acclaimed Homebound, which had its premiere at Cannes. As a person, she’s prudent with her words—evident in our Zoom conversation, where she speaks to me from a whizzing car between a shoot and a dance rehearsal. But within all the exhausting vigilance of a Gen Z woman disillusioned with the internet, I glimpse flashes of an old-school romantic: a stoic who can't resist a fairy tale.

Vogue India: You've been in the public eye since you were six years old. How has that shaped your relationship with fame?