Mahesh Bhatt compares Alia Bhatt to Smita Patil

After an underwhelming but highly glamorous debut with ‘Student Of The Year’ (2012), Alia Bhatt surprised the audience with her next film, ‘Highway’ (2014). Bhatt earned the respect of a talented performer with her second innings and her films which followed furthered her image of a good actor. Her father, Mahesh Bhatt, believes his daughter has the potential to work in the way Smita Patil did.

Speaking to��PTI, Mahesh Bhatt said, “There is a new dawn, a new energy. There is a new beginning… I see a lot more actors, including a few regional parallel cinema actresses and also my daughter Alia Bhatt walking the way this great actor Smita did way back in time… She could act both in commercial and parallel films and yet not get cliched…��Why shouldn’t I mention my daughter Alia? She has done ‘Highway’ and also some lighter roles at a very young age. She can do both commercial and experimental films as she has grown up seeing Smita Patil and Shabana Azmi’s movies by my production house.”

However, the filmmaker added that he would not limit this solely to his daughter and believes there are other talented actresses in the industry too.

Mahesh Bhatt also went on to compare his nephew Emraan Hashmi’s choices to Smita Patil, saying, “Smita did exactly what Emraan Hashmi is doing, bringing star value to the table of parallel filmmakers by doing commercial films and offbeat films like ‘Shanghai’.”

Alia Bhatt will next be seen in Abhishek Chaubey’s ‘Udta Punjab’ and Emraan Hashmi in Tony D’Souza’s ‘Azhar’.

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