Salman Khan’s advice to star-niece Alizeh debuting in ‘Farrey’: “Even if you have a heart-break, focus only on your work, give it your best” !.    by  Chaitanya Padukone

The final countdown has begun for  photogenic talented Alizeh Agnihotri  who makes her acting debut in  Hindi movie ‘Farrey’ releasing this Friday.   The talented Alizeh ( it means ‘breeze’) is the  daughter of Salman Khan‘s sister Alvira Khan-Agnihotri  and  star lead actor- filmmaker Atul Agnihotri,  and her film  has been directed by  Soumendra Padhi (‘Jamtara’--Sabka Number Aayega’ crime-drama  web TV series fame )

By the way, ‘Faarey’ means-- the small written or printed chits, that are often used discreetly for illegal ‘copying’ during exams.

Interestingly, way back in 1993,  (Alizeh’s father) Atul Agnihotri had invited me to his residence to take his media-interview when he was launched as the lead romantic hero in Hindi movie ‘Sir’ by mentor-director Mahesh Bhatt. Thereafter, I kept meeting Atul at various social and film-media events. Today he is a proud father with his gen-next daughter making her acting debut.

Actress-model Alizeh, just 23, frankly talks about how she grew up, staying away from the media limelight even after being born in a fully-filmy family. Alizeh is not the glamorous young girl one would expect a ‘star- kid’ to be like,. Her choice to act in  Farrey as her debut is also unconventional. She says it was her personal choice to do something “unexpected” and focus on content in her first film because that’s what the audience are looking at right now. She says, “It was a personal choice. In a show business that is changing every day, it is so unpredictable, you have to do something very unexpected to break through the conventional clutter. So I am glad Farrey happened because it really fascinated me. I thought it was a different, innovative way to make a debut. Thanks to the family I come from, people are saying that I am making a big-time debut, but for me, I am like a small part of this film with a lot of good co-actors. It was a great learning experience. It is a film that is based in a school, so it felt like I was going back to school where I was being trained for acting.(laughs).  Even if it is a commercial film, I want my role to be interesting. But yes, I wanted to make a choice like this and I am glad I could actually go ahead with it,” she says with a sweet smile.

Does Alizeh feel the pressures of  being part of a filmy family and being Salman Khan’s niece? She honestly replies, “Yes, of course. There is a lot of pressure. It is a stressful situation, especially now that we have started promoting the film, until then I didn’t feel this pressure.” she adds that she feels even more pressure when it comes to handling the paparazzi.   “I am not a mega-star’s daughter, so they (photographers) won’t come on their own, I would need to call them. Basically, I am a very private person. So I rather do that when I have something to show and speak for myself. Now, I want to promote my movie, I want people to go and watch the movie, so I’ll do that. My family has given me a lot of creative freedom and I am really glad that I got a lot of time before I joined this entertainment world,” she shares.

Bollywood superstar Salman Khan launched the trailer of his niece Alizeh Agnihotri’s debut movie Farrey. At the press conference, Salman shared that actors Prasanna Bisht, Zeyn Shaw and Sahil Mehta, along with Alizeh, have worked very hard in the film, something he wouldn’t do now. He said, “I would never do so much hard work.”  Salman Khan then shared advice for Alizeh and the rest of the cast. The actor asked them not to get complacent in their work.

Giving an example of how Bollywood superstars like Shah Rukh Khan, Aamir Khan, Akshay Kumar, and Ajay Devgn started small and worked hard to climb the ladder of success, Salman said, “So everyone including me has come up from that way”.

Talking about launching Alizeh,  mamu-jaan Salman Khan  said, “Her destiny will not be related to just the destiny of this particular film. If this film does a fantastic job, then she gets complacent and it will be khallaas (finished). If this film does well, then she works ten times harder. Then she’ll come up. I say this to all of you guys (the rest of the cast), don’t get complacent. Just keep working, working, working, working. No matter if you are happy and you don’t want to go for shooting or if you are sad and you don’t want to go for shooting, you are not here for that. You just keep working. If your girlfriend leaves you, you got a heartbreak, whatever happens, keep all of that aside, just keep working, focus on your work and give it your best.”