Esha Deol On Mom Hema Malini's Advice Over Comparisons With Her: 'Won’t Work If It Affects You'

Veteran actor couple Dharmendra and Hema Malini’s elder daughter Esha Deol followed her parents and took up acting as her career. But her journey wasn’t as easy as she often used to get compared to her legendary actor parents, especially her mother. Recently, the 42-year-old actress, who made her acting debut with Koi Mere Dil Se Poochhe, shared how Hema Malini’s advice helped her handle such pressures in the industry.

In an interview with Bollywood Bubble, Esha was quizzed about the guidance she received from her actor parents. She said that her parents never gave her unnecessary advice and would only step in when she would approach them. “The advice came gradually as I started working in films and faced certain challenges. My parents never offered unnecessary advice; they only stepped in when I approached them with an issue,” added the actress.

Esha continued, “I remember after my first film, the comparisons between my mom and me began. I had a conversation with her, and she told me very clearly, ‘This is going to be a part of your journey. You are here because you’re passionate about your work, and it won’t work if this is going to affect you. You have to learn not to let it get to you and just keep going.’ And that’s exactly what I did.”

Well, this isn’t the first time that the Dhoom actress has opened up about facing comparisons with her actress-mother. Earlier, in an interaction with Zoom, Esha recalled how the “pressure pump” started after the release of her first film, with even being “body-shamed for her baby fat.” She mentioned, “The pressure pump started after the films were released, and things were written. Then I was like, they are comparing me in my first film to my mother, who has done 200 films. And they would say a lot about my baby fat. ‘Oh, she has so much baby fat’. I had, I was 18, those cheeks were there. But they looked cute in those roles, the kind of roles that I did, I thought they looked nice.”

Esha became the epitome of a bold and daring persona after her electrifying performance in Dhoom Machale, the hit song from her 2004 film Dhoom. Following the massive success of Sanjay Gadhvi’s action thriller, she appeared in several other films, such as Dus, LOC: Kargil, Yuva and No Entry, but struggled to make a lasting impact on the audience. After taking a break from the industry, Esha has returned to start a new inning in her career. Esha was most recently seen in Hunter: Tootega Nahi Todega.