Kiara Advani to Parineeti Chopra: Back after baby, On their own terms

From working through pregnancy to waiting years for the right role, these Bollywood actors show motherhood no longer comes with a fixed return-to-work

Motherhood is no longer necessarily a pause button on an actor’s career. While some women return to work within months of having a child, others take years to find the right project or simply wait until they feel ready — but increasingly, the decision is being made on their own terms. From Kiara Advani shooting portions of Toxic: A Fairy Tale for Grown-Ups while pregnant to Parineeti Chopra continuing to work through her pregnancy, Richa Chadha consciously taking time off after welcoming her daughter and Bipasha Basu returning to the screen after a longer gap, these actors are showing that there is no single timeline for a post-motherhood comeback.

Kiara Advani to Parineeti Chopra: Back after baby, On their own terms

Kiara Advani

Kiara Advani and Sidharth Malhotra welcomed their first child, Saraayah, in July 2025, and Kiara also shot some portions of her latest release Toxic: A Fairy Tale for Grown-Ups while pregnant, later promoting it after giving birth. Speaking about how motherhood changed her, on Raj Shamani’s podcast, Kiara said she feels like a “completely different person” before and after becoming a mother. In another conversation around her return, she said motherhood had made her “more of a tigress”.

Parineeti Chopra

Parineeti Chopra welcomed her first child, son Neer, with Raghav Chadha in October 2025. She was last seen in Amar Singh Chamkila (2024) and is now gearing up for Shaque: Trust No One, marking her web series debut. The project was shot partly while she was pregnant. At the trailer launch in Mumbai this week, Parineeti said, “I don’t think I’ve had a single conversation with a maker, director or writer who has mentioned motherhood to me.” She also made it clear that motherhood would not dictate her career choices, saying, “I would hate to stop working just because I became a mom.” She also praised Alia Bhatt, Deepika Padukone and Priyanka Chopra Jonas for helping normalise women continuing to work after motherhood.

Richa Chadha

Richa Chadha and Ali Fazal welcomed their daughter Zuneyra in July 2024, after which Richa took time away from acting. Last seen in web series Heeramandi in 2024, she is set to return onscreen in an upcoming crime-thriller series as a detective. Speaking to us, she said she consciously took time off because the initial months with her daughter were important. In December 2025, she also wrote about returning to work after “nearly two years”: “As much as I would have liked to get back sooner, my body, my mind wasn’t ready at all.”

Bipasha Basu

Bipasha Basu and Karan Singh Grover welcomed daughter Devi in November 2022. Before embracing motherhood, Bipasha’s last screen appearance was the 2020 web series Dangerous. Now, she’s marking a comeback with Hansal Mehta’s upcoming crime thriller series Barabanki, which marks her return after six years. In an interview, she spoke about how she had reached a point where she felt, “I myself want to start work. But I think now is the time that I should start working again.” The actor has also previously spoken about postpartum body-shaming and the pressure on women to look the same immediately after having a child.

Priety Zinta:

For some actors, motherhood has meant stepping away for years before returning when the timing feels right. Preity Zinta, who welcomed twins Jai and Gia through surrogacy in 2021, last appeared in Bhaiaji Superhit (2018) before returning to films in 2026 with Batwara 1947. She has been clear that the gap was not something she regretted, telling HT City, “I didn’t miss it, to be honest. I was enjoying having a family; it was new to me, having kids, focusing on my personal life,” and adding that while career milestones mattered, “my greatest milestone was to have children.”