Somewhere, a screenwriter should probably start working on a fabulous role for 75-year-old Kareena Kapoor Khan. Give her a complicated love life, a wicked sense of humour, perhaps a secret nobody sees coming. The actor has made her intentions clear: she wants to keep working, looking incredible and finding parts that interest her. Bollywood has time to prepare. An interesting script would be a good start.
“I want to be working and look amazing and do those parts even when I’m 75,” Kareena said in a recent interview, while discussing her approach to choosing films.
It is a statement with an appealing lack of hesitation. Why shouldn’t she picture herself on a film set decades from now? Actors spend their working lives imagining other people’s futures. Kareena appears perfectly comfortable imagining an ambitious one for herself.
Her comments, made during a conversation about working with Meghna Gulzar on Daayra, also offer something more substantial than an instantly shareable celebrity quote. They raise a question worth sitting with: what kinds of characters will Hindi cinema have ready for actresses who intend to stay?
Kareena Kapoor Khan wants room to surprise herself
Discussing her choices, Kareena emphasized her interest in directors who can challenge her and take her into unfamiliar creative territory. She also acknowledged that audiences have expectations about the kinds of films they want from her, including comedy and lighter entertainment.
That is a familiar predicament for an actor with recognizable screen personalities. Audiences fall in love with a performance, then understandably want another helping. The actor, meanwhile, may want to try an entirely different menu.
There is affection in that audience attachment. A favourite character can become a comfort watch, a reference between friends or the reason someone buys a ticket years later. But affection can also come with instructions: be funny again, dress like that again, make us feel exactly what we felt the first time.
A career needs room for the unexpected, too. Otherwise, familiarity starts doing the casting.
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From streaming thrillers to a producer’s credit
There are concrete examples of Kareena trying different avenues. Her streaming debut came with Jaane Jaan in 2023, a Sujoy Ghosh-directed mystery thriller co-starring Jaideep Ahlawat and Vijay Varma. The project placed her within a world of concealed information, suspicion and an unfolding investigation. The official announcement marked a new distribution format for the actor as well as another screen collaboration.
A streaming debut at an established point in a career is an interesting reminder that firsts do not belong exclusively to newcomers. Experience and experimentation can occupy the same sentence.
Then there is The Buckingham Murders, centred on a grieving police officer who becomes involved in a missing-child investigation. Kareena also has a producer credit on the film, which had its world premiere at the 2023 BFI London Film Festival. The British Council’s film listing records both the premise and her production involvement.
Taken together, these projects provide useful context for her comments about longevity. Extending a career can involve changing the kind of character one plays, the collaborators one works with and the responsibilities one takes on behind the camera.
What does a good role at 75 actually look like?
Here is where the conversation gets entertaining. Imagine a romantic comedy in which the woman knows exactly what she wants and still manages to make a glorious mess of getting it. A caper with an older woman who is several steps ahead of everyone else. A family drama in which she has a private life the family knows absolutely nothing about.
These are hypothetical stories, of course. But the exercise exposes how much narrative possibility remains available when age becomes part of a character rather than her entire description.
An older woman can be vain, generous, ambitious, flirtatious, unreasonable, hilarious or spectacularly wrong. She can want money, solitude, romance, revenge or simply a weekend without anybody asking her to solve their problems.
There is a great deal for an actor to do in that list. And quite a lot for an audience to enjoy.
The useful question, then, is what writers and producers are willing to imagine. A meaningful part gives a character decisions to make, consequences to face and desires of her own. Merely keeping her in the frame is a much smaller achievement.
A long career needs more than applause
Kareena’s ambition should not be mistaken for proof that every actress has access to the same opportunities. One established star’s choices cannot tell us how the wider industry treats women, or which scripts receive funding.
There is also a difference between celebrating an actress’s longevity and creating work that makes that longevity interesting. Praise is easy. A fully developed character takes writing, financing and the conviction to put her at the centre of a story.
That distinction is what gives this conversation substance. If an actress wants to work for decades, the opportunity should include the possibility of being surprising across those decades. Audiences may have favourites, but they can also discover new ones.
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Kareena Kapoor Khan.
Bollywood has time to write the next chapter
For now, Kareena’s statement is a declaration of intent, not the announcement of a distant project. Its appeal lies in how naturally she places continued work and creative ambition in her future.
There is something refreshing about a conversation that looks forward with that much appetite. No elaborate permission slip, no apology for wanting more: simply the expectation that there will still be interesting work to do.
So, yes, somebody should begin thinking about that role for 75-year-old Kareena Kapoor Khan. Give her excellent dialogue, a few questionable decisions and something she wants badly enough to pursue.
Then give her a story worth staying for.
