Sunny Leone shuns presence of ageism in the industry: I turned 24 this year, not the other way round

In the Hindi film industry, it is often believed that female actors have a certain shelf life, and their age determines the kind of opportunities they get on screen. Actor Sunny Leone, who turned 42 last month, is not fretting about a correlation between getting work and age. While several actors, in the past, have called out the prevalence of ageism in the film industry, Leone believes that everyone has a chance to do something unique, and experiment with their craft.

“This year, whatever Wikipedia and all these websites say about my age, is wrong. I turned 24 this year, not the other way around,” quips the actor.

When asked about her views on the prevalence of ageism in Bollywood, she adds, “When you work in the entertainment business, you are always at your best self. The way you present yourself to the world has a lot to do with how you are going to get work. We live in a world where everything has changed and so many different characters are needed for so many different types of platforms.”

The actor says if one really wishes to work, all they have to do is go after it and make it happen. “As far as age is concerned, some of the best roles, and some of the best TV shows, are with more distinguished and senior actors from the industry. And we love watching them because of how well they perform on screen. So, age barely has anything to do with it,” says Leone, who started her acting career with Jism 2 (2012) and went on to star in films such as Ragini MMS 2, Hate Story 2, Ek Paheli Leela, Mastizaade among other.

Calling age just a number, the actor further elaborates on how she looks at this whole concept of turning older.

“I don’t feel like my age, like my parents did. I remember looking at my parents at this age and thinking, ‘Oh, wow, that’s so old, but I feel younger than ever.’ I have lots of energy, I exercise a lot, I eat well, and I get so much energy from family and kids,” she shares.

For her journey in the film industry so far, Leone considers herself extremely fortunate. “I signed some really amazing projects, and they’re finished. I’m grateful that I’ve gotten a chance to work on them and the feedback that I’m getting is very positive. So , I’m pretty satisfied right now,” gushes the actor, who also visited Cannes Film Festival this year for her upcoming film, Keneddy which .

“I’d call it one of my biggest accomplishments… In my head, I know that such a thing might not ever happen again, so I made sure I absorbed that whole experience, and whatever learnings I got, I’ll try to implement in my future projects and whatever I do in life,” she signs off.