Shefali Shah opens up on playing Akshay Kumar's mother in Waqt in her 20s; 'I didn't see the big deal'

In the 2005 movie Waqt: The Race Against Time, Shefali Shah played the on-screen mother of Akshay Kumar, who is five years older than her.

Shefali Shah, who has portrayed a number of versatile roles in her career, had started playing older characters when she was just in her 20s. In the 2005 movie Waqt: The Race Against Time, Shefali played the mother of Akshay Kumar, who is five years older than her in real life. In the comedy-drama film, Shefali's character Sumitra Thakur is married to Amitabh Bachchan's character Ishwarchand Thakur. The actor, who was just 28 when she accepted the role of middle-aged Sumitra, has said she has no regrets about playing the part.

Shefali Shah played Akshay Kumar's mother in 2005 movie Waqt.

Shefali recalls that she did not think it was a big deal at the time that she was playing a character much older than her. She said she loved the script and the role that was given to her.

In a recent conversation with Pinkvilla, Shefali said, "I believe that as an actor, the joy of being an actor is that you play roles that you are not. It could be caste, creed, colour, sex, and age falls into the same bracket. So I didn't see what was the big deal. I mean that was the exciting part, being somebody I am not."

Shefali added that another reason that she did the movie was that she wanted to work with Amitabh Bachchan, and the film's director Vipul Amrutlal Shah, to whom she is now married. She continued, "I really loved the script and I loved the role. Before that, I did Hashratein (where she played a 30-35-year-old when she was 20), and there was not so much thinking that went into it."

Shefali will be next seen in Jalsa with Vidya Balan and in Doctor G with Ayushmann Khurrana and Rakul Preet Singh. She will also be seen in Alia Bhatt's production debut Darlings.