Zareen Khan: ‘I am in a place where if seen with my brother who people don’t know, they will say mystery man’

Housefull 2 (2012), Hate Story 3 (2015), Ready (2011) — Zareen Khan has been a part of successful films. But the actor’s career which began opposite Salman Khan with Veer (2011), never really picked up momentum and instead, found herself doing more work in Punjabi and south cinema.

Ask her the reason and she shares, “I had gotten a lot of backlash after my first film. It took me some time to understand how things work here in the Hindi film industry. I was a newcomer, and belonged to a non-film background. I was 21-years old, not as smart as the 21 year olds you have now. I was a complete tomboy, who had never thought about acting, and I was put in that space, so tried to cope with that. I was asked to put on weight for Veer, as I was playing an 18th-century woman in it, and women then were little on the plumper side.”

And once her debut film, which released almost a decade ago, hit the theatres, she wasn’t prepared for the criticism. “Nothing went well. My looks got compared, my fashion sense, too. I couldn’t understand what happened, what did I do wrong. But then Housefull 2 happened, and people’s perception changed a bit. After Hate Story, it changed 360 degrees, people said ‘she’s so hot’, but honestly, there was no change between my weight in Hate Story and Veer. It was about the way I looked and was portrayed. People’s perception makes a difference, it is because of which the whole industry thrives,” explains the 32-year old, who was recently seen in the Punjabi film Daaka.

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Apart from her professional life, Zareen’s personal life also leads to a lot of speculations. Currently, it’s her equation with fitness trainer Abbas Ali that has sparked rumours of a relationship between them. So, is there any truth that the two are seeing each other, we ask.

Zareen laughs, “Rumours keep coming now and then. We are in a place like tomorrow, if I am seen with my cousin brother whom people don’t know, they will say ‘spotted with mystery man’. It doesn’t bother me. Abbas is a very dear friend, we know each other for a long time now, our whole group of friends hangs out together. Abbas and me are so comfortable hanging out alone. It doesn’t mean (we are dating). People will say whatever they have to, and I am really okay not clarifying it.”

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