When Kareena Kapoor Was Traumatised: ‘Would Cry Myself To Sleep’

Mumbai: Kareena Kapoor Khan has carved a special place for herself in the Hindi film industry over a period of close to two-and-a-half decades.

One of the highest-paid artistes among female artistes, Kareena’s latest film ‘Crew’ opened encouragingly on Friday.

But there was a time when Bebo, the daughter of Randhir Kapoor-Babita and younger sister of Karishma, struggled in Bollywood.

Now 43, Kareena has acted in over 60 films since making her debut in 2000 with JP Dutta-directed ‘Refugee’. Though the film, co-starring Abhishek Bachchan, didn’t do well commercially, Kareena got the Filmfare award for Best Female debut. She followed it up with two more striking performances in ‘Asoka’ and ‘Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham’ a year later.

However, Kareena experienced a series of back-to-back flops thereafter.

By her own admission, Kareena used to cry herself to sleep during those days and wondered why her films were not working at the box office.

Kareena, who recently appeared on the podcast ‘The Ranveer Show’, said she had “a string of flops” before Imtiaz Ali’s ‘Jab We Met’ brought her success.

“I was very upset. I was traumatised, I would cry myself to sleep for so many nights thinking, ‘Why are my films not working? What is happening?’ People were like, she is so good but that one turn which I needed, was not happening,” Kareena said.

Asked what led to her failure at that early stage, Kareena said, “I was doing just any and every film, not really thinking about it. Films were not working at the box office and, ultimately, box office success is important.”

After a long career, Kareena feels she is known more for her failures than her successes.

She feels someone else in her place wouldn’t have been able to handle so many failures.

“In 25 years, there have been many ups and downs. If you go back to the trajectory of my career, there has been a string of flops that have happened. If it happened to anybody else, nobody would have survived it,” she remarked.