People forget women have biological clock, says Preity Zinta
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Preity Zinta, known for her illustrious career in Bollywood, is making her acting comeback with the film "Lahore 1947," starring Sunny Deol.
The actress, who recently returned to the Cannes Film Festival after 17 years, opened up about her reasons for stepping away from the industry and the challenges she faced.
In an interview with DD India at Cannes, Preity discussed her hiatus from acting, emphasizing the impact of the biological clock on women's careers.
She said, "I didn’t want to do a film. I was focusing on my business. I wanted to focus on my personal life. People forget that for women as actors… yes, your craft is important, yes you want your body of work. But, there’s a biological clock. So, I never dated anybody in the industry. The logical thing was I had to also have my own family. It’s great to live various lives (as an actor) but, you shouldn’t forget to live your own life. So, I wanted to have children. There’s always a film and then I was also very excited about a business as it was something different. But, mostly it was… I wanted to focus on my personal life. So, I said ‘I am going to focus on that part of me because I really don’t want to be an accomplished actor but a lonely person’."
Preity, who welcomed twins, daughter Gia and son Jai, in 2021 with her husband Gene Goodenough, also expressed her feelings about returning to work.
She revealed, "Now, my kids are two and a half and I am back at work. I am loving coming back to work, but I have so much guilt every day. I feel like I am missing out and my daughter Gia and son Jai look at me and say ‘mumma please stay with us’ and I start crying, And then I am telling myself, it’s okay there are so many other women out there."
Reflecting on societal pressures, Preity added, "Everyone was telling me ‘you will miss the bus and the truck and the train’ (she laughs) and I was like okay. Now, I am laughing about it but it's true and it's for every woman who works out there. Everybody tells you and you tell it to yourself that I want equality and I want to work as hard as a man. But, you have a biological clock and nature is not equal to you so you have to leave what you are doing and focus on that."
Preity Zinta was last seen in the 2018 film "Bhaiyaa Ji Superhit" and is currently shooting for "Lahore 1947," directed by Rajkumar Santoshi. This film marks the first collaboration between actors Sunny Deol and Aamir Khan, with Khan backing the project under his production banner Aamir Khan Productions. The film’s script is based on Ashghar Wajahat’s play "Jis Lahore Nai Dekhya, O Jamyai Nai," which tells the story of a Hindu family left behind in Lahore, Pakistan.
