'Ordinary Mortal' Alia Bhatt Was 'Shaken To The Roots' When Shandaar Flopped, Says Mahesh Bhatt

Alia Bhatt is undoubtedly one of the most sought-after actresses in Bollywood. Most fraternity members call Alia Bhatt their favourite actress and express their wish to work with her. However, Alia is no stranger to box office failure, having delivered both hits and misses throughout her career. Her first box office dud came with Shandaar, which also featured Shahid Kapoor. In a chat with Siddharth Kannan, Alia’s father, Mahesh Bhatt, recalled how this failure broke her.

Mahesh Bhatt said, “When Alia had tasted her first failure, which was the film Shandaar. It had come after a few hits, so she was shaken to the roots by that. Even though she is a tough girl on the outside, a failure is a failure.”

The filmmaker said, “Something like that reminds

you that you are just an ordinary mortal human being; maut aapke ghar mai bhi hogi. That you, too, will have that relationship with failure, and we all have to go through that season of life. There is no person in this industry who hasn’t gone through something like that, including the greats like Raj Kapoor sahab.”

Alia Bhatt bounced back from Shandaar’s disaster and has now established herself as a globally recognised artist. In another interview, Mahesh Bhatt called her the “new-age” actress and lauded her for balancing motherhood with her professional commitments.

In a conversation with Humans of Bollywood, Mahesh Bhatt said, “Alia chose to get married, and she had a child, and she works. She just went to Milan for the Gucci event, carrying her daughter with her. I recently did an ad with her and Mr Bachchan. I saw that there was a vanity which was for Raha.”

“And Alia says, ‘Why don’t you go and sit in Raha’s room, papa?’ I didn’t want to contaminate it. It had the feeling of a nursery school. It almost looked like a temple. I said, ‘No, no, no, the old man has no place there’. But that’s the new-age heroines. They go to work, they’re parenting, they go to Gucci events carrying their baby with them,” the filmmaker said.

Meanwhile, Alia Bhatt is gearing up for Alpha, a high-octane action thriller directed by Shiv Rawail. Set in YRF’s ever-expanding Spy Universe, the film will see her stepping into the role of a top-ranking officer in an all-female combat unit—a bold and gritty transformation for the actor.

Alia will also reunite with Ranbir Kapoor and Sanjay Leela Bhansali in Love and War, a sweeping period romantic drama that also stars Vicky Kaushal. The project marks her second film with Ranbir after Brahmāstra, and expectations from the trio’s collaboration are already sky-high.