Hunkkaar creators Karan D Kapadia, Nitya Mehra laugh at being called Aneet Padda's parents: 'She is not our nepo baby'

Aneet Padda was mistakenly called filmmakers Nitya Mehra and Karan D Kapadia's daughter last year. They open up on her journey, Hunkkaar, and more.

Even though it was shot in 2024, the JioHotstar show Hunkkaar is releasing now, two years later. For most actors, life has progressed since then. But for Aneet Padda, it has transformed. In between, she had her Bollywood breakthrough with Saiyaara and became an overnight star. Hunkkaar creators Karan D Kapadia and Nitya Mehra have seen Aneet’s journey from the beginning, having worked with her on two projects before. In a conversation with Hindustan Times, the two filmmakers talk about her growth as an actor and the time she was branded a ‘nepo baby’ by the internet.

Karan and Nitya on Aneet in Hunkkaar

Aneet Padda with Nitya Mehra and Karan D Kapadia at the trailer launch of Hunkkaar. (Twitter)

Aneet worked with Karan and Nitya on a short film before joining their acclaimed web series, Big Girls Don’t Cry. The filmmakers say that this created a comfort zone for them with the actor. Nitya tells us why she was chosen for Hunkkaar, “We had done a short film with her when she was out of school, then Big Girls Don't Cry, and this was the next project. We, as filmmakers, and she, as a film child, were growing together. She is a chameleon. That's why Hunkkaar is so interesting, to see Aneet's journey on it. She had that childlike quality needed for the character to be the face of the fight. And as you said about changing the narrative from victim to survivor, we never wanted to use the term victim. You needed someone who could pull off being vulnerable while having an entire nation behind her.”

On Aneet being called their daughter

Aneet feels the same affection and admiration for the filmmaker couple that they do for her. In an interview with Cosmopolitan India last year, she referred to them as her ‘Bombay parents’, implying that they were her guardians in the city, where she lived away from family. But that term created some confusion, and soon, the internet was convinced that Aneet was their daughter. Reddit posts branded her a ‘nepo baby’, downplaying her success in Saiyaara. Karan laughs, recalling the episode. “First of all, I'm damn young, so it's impossible I could be her biological parent,” says the father of a six-year-old. Nitya chimes in, tongue firmly in cheek, “Karan was in depression! He was like, ‘How can the world think I have a 20- or 21-year-old daughter?!’ So he was going through his crisis on that.”

Karan feels that the entire misunderstanding is symptomatic of how society likes to bring people down after early success. He says, “As a society, we try to bring people down and take credit away: 'Oh, she's a nepo baby, she's got backing.' For Nitya and me, it's very important to state that anyone standing where they are today is there on the merit of their hard work. No one can take that away.” Nitya adds that it doesn’t matter what the world thinks about their equation, though. “Whether she calls me a Bombay parent or whatever, I'm just damn proud of her.”

All about Hunkkaar

Hunkkaar: The Roar also stars Fatima Sana Shaikh, Mohammed Zeeshan Ayub, Raghubir Yadav, and Zoya Hussain. The series focuses on a schoolgirl’s allegation of sexual harassment against a revered self-proclaimed godman and the investigation into it. The show will release on JioHotstar on September 25.