As Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham completes 25 years this year, Kajol says that a whole new generation of viewers is discovering and revisiting the films that defined her career. The actor says she has had several young people approach her after watching Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham (2001), Kuch Kuch Hota Hai (1998) and Pyaar Toh Hona Hi Tha (1998).

“There is a whole revival of the ’90s and 2000s scene that has come up,” she shares, adding, “Younger people come up to me and say, ‘Oh, we just watched K3G. We’ve just watched Kuch Kuch Hota Hai (1998). We’ve just watched Pyaar To Hona Hi Tha (1998). What a cool film it is!’ It’s very exciting.”

Asked which character she identifies with the most, the 52-year-old quips, “Anjali from Kuch Kuch Hota Hai. I feel like there I was a tomboy then!”

For Kajol, the renewed interest in the era goes beyond nostalgia, with younger audiences now discovering the sensibility of films made decades ago. “There is that whole wanting to, you know, watch films like that, which were somewhere, I think, made with a lot of passion and cleanliness,” she shares. “They were kind of much more romanticized than films today. So I think people want films like that. They want to watch films like that. I hope we can make films like that till today.”

Interestingly, while a new generation is discovering her work, Kajol says her own Gen Z children, Nysa Devgn, 23, and Yug Devgn, 15, aren’t keen on watching her films. “They feel I’m a little too convincing in films and that I’m too good an actor at times!” she says.

Explaining their take, she adds, “They’re like, ‘We don’t watch your movies because we don’t want to watch our mum cry too much.’”

She jokes, “If I was a bad actor, maybe they would have seen more of my films. But because I cry so well on screen, they’re like, no, we don’t watch your movies because we don’t want to watch our mom cry too much on screen.”

Having spent decades in the industry, Kajol has also seen her share of news reports about herself, some accurate and some not. While there have been reports of her joining Atlee and Allu Arjun’s Raaka (earlier titled AA22xA6) and the Prabhas-starrer Spirit, the actor remains unfazed by what is written about her.

“I don’t pay attention to all of these news articles, really. I mean, 90% of them are all rubbish anyway,” she says, adding, “The day I do sign a film, I’m very clear about it. People will know within minutes, everybody will knows that I’m doing this.”

Actor Kajol, recently seen in the horror film Maa, opens up about parenting under public scrutiny and how her children, Nysa (22) and Yug (14), have coped with the relentless paparazzi culture. She tells us, “Honestly, they’ve handled it with more grace than I have!” adding, “They still are handling it with a lot more grace than I am, in fact, with a lot more acceptance as well.”

She continues, “We’ve had a lot of conversations over it. Nysa has been hounded [by cameras] since she was 14 or 15, which was not right.”

Sharing how the media attention leads to a different lifestyle, Kajol says, “You need security to go out; you can’t do a lot of things that you probably would’ve been able to do otherwise. But also, now that Nysa’s a little more grown up, it’s something that you have to accept, right? So, we have no choice other than to change our perspective and handle it with a lot of dignity and grace.”

When asked about the parenting values she picked up from her mother, actor Tanuja, Kajol says much of it was absorbed “unconsciously and subconsciously.”

She says the biggest lesson she learnt over time was the importance of discipline. “After rebelling for many years as a child, I finally understood how important discipline is for children,” she shares, comparing it to placing a border around a young tree so it can grow straight and strong.

Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge (1995) remains Indian cinema’s longest-running film. As it turns 30, Kajol sums up the experience: “I worked with my friends and had a blast. I knew we were making a good film because the script was fantastic. We ate good food and travelled around Switzerland — it was like being on one long working holiday. Parts of it were ridiculous, like trying to drape a sari in a cowshed and rolling down a hill by mistake. It was like [we were] running to finish, changing clothes, and before the sunsets, we would sometimes have 15 minutes for the shot. All that madness — I loved every bit of it.”

With 34 years in the industry, Kajol has seen Bollywood evolve. Reflecting on the post-pandemic slump in theatre footfalls, she weighs in on whether content is falling short:

“Content is king right now. People are only coming in to watch things that really make sense to go and watch on the [big] screen. We have upped our standards; we need to do it, and there’s not one person who does not realise that. We are all slowly but surely upping our standards. We realize that we are at an international level, and we have to compete at that level; we’re not competing at a national level anymore.”