'Industry didn't give me chance to prove my individuality'

Zareen Khan said that comparisons with Katrina Kaif ‘backfired’ on her career as the film industry didn’t give her a chance to prove her individuality. During a recent ‘Ask me Anything’ session on ‘Reddit’, Zareen also said that she was ‘literally like a lost child’ during her early years in Bollywood as she didn’t come from a ‘filmy background’.

Khan also said that initially, she was ‘really happy to be compared to Katrina’. She said she was a fan of Kaif and found her to be ‘really pretty’. Zareen made her acting debut with the 2010 film ‘Veer’. She was one of the newcomers launched by Salman Khan. She was instantly compared to Katrina, who had worked in several films with Salman by then, such as ‘Maine Pyaar Kyun Kiya’ (2005) and ‘Partner’ (2007).

A person asked Zareen on ‘Reddit’, “People compared you a lot with Katrina Kaif in your early days in Bollywood. How did it make you feel and did it have any impact on your career?” to which the actor replied, “So when I entered this industry, I was literally like a lost child since I don’t come from a filmy background. So, it made me feel really happy to be compared to Katrina, as I was her fan too and found her really pretty. But it backfired on my career as the people of this industry didn’t give me a chance to prove my individuality.”

Apart from Hindi films, Zareen has also appeared in Punjabi, Telugu and Tamil films. After her first film, ‘Veer’, in which she featured alongside Salman Khan, Mithun Chakraborty and Jackie Shroff, Zareen was seen in the 2012 comedy ‘Housefull 2’. She has acted in ‘Hate Story 3’ (2015) and the Telugu film ‘Chanakya’.

She was also seen in the 2014 Punjabi film ‘Jatt James Bond’. Directed by Rohit Jugraj, the film also featured Gippy Grewal, Gurpreet Ghuggi and Yashpal Sharma. It was Zareen’s first Punjabi film.