Kangana Ranaut, who is extensively promoting her new film Bharat Bhagya Vidhata, recently opened up about how many younger actors in the film industry are insecure and don’t appreciate each other. Describing this kind of behaviour as “toxic”, Kangana said that she tried to learn from her contemporaries when she joined the film industry, and named Deepika Padukone as one of the actors that she learnt from.

Talking to Entertainment Live, Kangana said that she left her home when she was still a teenager and did not understand the ways of the world. “I knew nothing back then,” she said and added, “I learnt so much from people around me. Whatever good qualities I saw in people around me, I took inspiration from that.” She then named Deepika and shared, “I learnt so much from contemporaries like Deepika. She had an athletic background. I came from studying science. I learnt that it’s so beneficial to exercise. I learnt from others also… Like those who styled themselves well.”

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Kangana said that one needs to acknowledge and appreciate their contemporaries’ qualities, and learn from them, instead of just rejecting them. “The kind of negativity that I see around me now, especially in the younger generation… So much negativity is not good. This is toxic. We need to eradicate it consciously,” she said.

Kangana was also asked why there hasn’t been another actress like her in the Hindi film industry, and she said the same holds true for other female actors as well and named the likes of Madhuri Dixit, Karisma Kapoor, Waheeda Rehman, Meena Kumari, and Deepika Padukone.

“People think that actresses come and go but that’s not the case,” she said and added, “There hasn’t been a second Meena Kumari, or Karisma Kapoor also. There is a time for everything… Be it Hema Malini or Waheeda Rehman or… There cannot be another Madhubala. Every era has its own face and you can never replace those people. There hasn’t been another Madhuri Dixit, or Juhi Chawla, or even Divya Bharti. So it’s not just me. There hasn’t been another Deepika Padukone also. All of us represent a particular era.”

Kangana spoke about Deepika a few months ago as well, when she supported her 8-hour workday demand. She told ANI, “Today, she is the topmost actress. If she wants to work for just eight hours, she has earned that.” She said that Deepika has “earned a a space where people should say, ‘We want her,’ and adjust accordingly, even if it means working around her eight-hour schedule.”

But, in 2025, while promoting her film Emergency, Kangana took a dig at Deepika’s role in Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Padmaavat. She revealed that she rejected this role and implied that she did so because it had nothing to offer. “I was also offered Padmaavati. I asked him (Bhansali) that it would be great if I could get the script of the film. He said, ‘I never give my scripts’. Then I asked him, ‘What is the role of the heroine then?’ He said, ‘The hero is struck by the heroine when he sees her getting ready in a mirror’. When I actually watched the film, I realised that she is actually only getting ready in the entire film. He was right. I don’t want to take these names and bring attention to individuals. But I want to ask, which director I should work with?” she told Ajeet Bharti.

Previously, in 2022, Kangana had called Deepika’s film Gehraiyaan “trash” and criticised the film in an Instagram story. “I am also a millennial but I identify and understand this kind of romance…in the name of millennial/new age/urban movies don’t sell trash pls…bad movies are bad movies no amount of skin show or pornography can save it …it’s a basic fact koi gehraiyaan wali baat nahi hai (sic).”

Back in 2020, when Deepika Padukone visited Jawaharlal Nehru University to support the the students, Kangana had a sharp take on it and she told Spotboye, “I think she is exercising her democratic right. She very well knows what she is doing.” She added, “I can say what I want to do. I definitely don’t want to go and stand with tukde gang. I don’t want to support anyone who wants to divide this nation.”

Deepika visited JNU shortly before the release of her film Chhapaak and Kangana had then thanked her for the film. Kangana’s sister Rangoli, is a survivor in an acid attack case and the film was based on a similar story. “My entire family and I thank Deepika Padukone and Meghna Gulzar for making a film on this subject so that the victims of acid attacks find strength,” she said.