Neil Nitin Mukesh says people doubted him because he looked ‘angrez ka baccha': ‘They wondered if I even knew Hindi'

Hindustan Times

28-04-2025

Actor Neil Nitin Mukesh recently opened up about the kinds of challenges he faced in Bollywood due to his looks. Talking to The Therapy Diariez, he said that people doubted if he even knew how to speak Hindi because he came from a family of singers and looked 'firangi'. Here's what he said. (Also Read: 'Nepo kid hamari field mein glorify zyada kiya jaata hai', says Neil Nitin Mukesh: Being a star's son creates pressure)
Neil was asked if he had any fear before he landed his first film in Bollywood and he replied, 'Till the time I didn't land my first film, I didn't let anything affect me. I said, I can't afford to have any kind of fear. I can't afford to have any kind of panics on the front of, will I make something of myself? I do not have a choice, I did not have a choice at all. I had to do it at any cost.'
He then added that people questioned him due to his family and how he looked, 'It was already a challenge that I am Mukesh ji's grandson and he's a singer. My father is a singer. Anyway, people were doubting if I could even act. Is his Hindi even good? Dikhta firangi hai. (He looks like a foreigner) So I had a lot of these challenges to tackle. People would say, I look like an angrez ka baccha (child of a foreigner). If I would be able to work in Hindi films. All these were my handicaps which I made into my positives.'
For the uninitiated, Neil is the son of playback singer Nitin Mukesh and grandson of singer Mukesh. While he acted as a child artiste in 1988 and 1989 in Vijay and Jaisi Karni Waisi Bharnii, he worked as an assistant director in the 2002 film Mujhse Dosti Karoge. In 2007, he debuted as a lead with Johnny Gaddaar and was most recently seen in the 2024 film Hisaab Barabar.