Mouni Roy shrugs off backlash for playing Varun Dhawan's fake mother at 40: 'I knew what I had done'

When the trailer of Hai Jawani Toh Ishq Hona Hai dropped, the casting choice that sent social media into overdrive.

Actor Mouni Roy found herself at the centre of an unexpected debate after audiences spotted her playing the (fake) mother of Varun Dhawan. Given that the two actors are just a year apart in age in real life, the internet wasted no time turning the casting into a talking point.

But if the backlash rattled Roy, she certainly isn't showing it.

Addressing the criticism, the actor made it clear that public chatter never influenced how she viewed the role. For her, the only opinion that mattered was that of the people making the film.

“I can’t do anything about it. I didn’t care what the noise was. I didn’t care what people were saying. It became such a big thing that ‘how can the makers do this to me!’ But I knew what I had done in the film. I knew that my director was very happy, and so is everybody I’ve worked with on the film,” she told News18.

The controversy erupted after the trailer's release, with many viewers questioning why 40-year-old Roy had been cast as the mother of 39-year-old Dhawan. While the film's plot establishes that the mother-son relationship is fake, that detail did little to stop the memes, jokes and criticism flooding social media.

Ironically, Roy admits her own first reaction wasn't all that different.

Recalling how she first heard about the role, she revealed that even she did a double take when casting director Mukesh Chhabra called her.

“First, Mukesh Chhabra (casting director) had called me. When he told me about the part, my first reaction was also that. I was like, ‘His mother?’ Then I went and heard a narration from David sir and Farhad Samji (dialogue writer).”

Once she heard the full setup, however, the absurdity of the situation became part of the fun.

“I laughed my guts out! Just imagine, Varun is calling Maniesh (Maniesh Paul) and saying, ‘Maa ka phone call nahi chahiye, puri ki puri maa chahiye. Nirupa Roy jaisi.‘ Cut to, you see me walk in, where someone else is telling Jimmy sir’s character, ‘Yeh maa ke liye thodi chhoti nahi hai?‘”