After staying away from Tinseltown for the longest time, Riddhima Kapoor Sahni, the daughter of Bollywood legends Rishi Kapoor and Neetu Kapoor (née Singh), finally made her acting debut last month with director Ashish R Mohan’s comedy-drama Daadi Ki Shaadi. While she appeared alongside her mother, Neetu, marking her comeback to movies after four years, Daadi Ki Shaadi also made Riddhima the oldest Kapoor woman to make her film debut.

Despite belonging to the Kapoor khandan, arguably the biggest and most powerful film family in Bollywood, Riddhima, intriguingly, faced a movie camera for the first time at 45. While many assumed this was due to the family’s former unwritten rule that women shouldn’t work in show business or to Rishi Kapoor’s resistance, Riddhima recently dispelled such speculation, insisting that her father was actually supportive of her dreams.

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For the unversed, there once was an unspoken rule in the Kapoor khandan that women shouldn’t work in the film business, whether they were born into it or married into it. As a result, the family had no female actors for the longest time, nor did women like Neetu or Babita — who were already established actors — remain in Tinseltown after marrying into the family. Babita and Randhir Kapoor’s daughter, Karisma Kapoor, was the first woman from the family to become an actor.

Riddhima, nonetheless, maintained that her father would have supported her acting aspirations and even guided her had he been around today. “My father was very protective. A lot of people say ‘Nahi, films mein aane nahi dete, kaam nahi karne dete’. Aisi baat nahi hai (A lot of people say, ‘Oh, he wouldn’t let us join films or work.’ But that wasn’t the case),” she shared during a recent conversation with news agency ANI.

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She further recalled that, despite being initially tense about it, Rishi eventually allowed her to move abroad for her studies. “I told my father that I wanted to study further and do it in the UK. He was very stressed about the idea of his daughter going to the UK alone, living alone, and wondering how it would work out. He paced up and down for half an hour, just thinking and thinking. He used to get very stressed whenever something different or new came up, like the kids going away. I was maybe 16-17 at the time, but he let me go,” she recalled.

“He said, ‘You do what you like, and I know you’ll give it your 100 per cent in whatever you do.’ He was very confident about that. Back then, and even now, if I had told dad, ‘I want to do this film, I’ll make you proud, you guide me, and I’ll be doing it with mom,’ he never would have stopped me. He would have been right there, guiding me. I know that because I knew my father; that’s why,” she added.

A highly accomplished actor who delivered several massive successes and memorable performances throughout his career, Rishi Kapoor passed away on April 30, 2020, at 67. He was the second son of legendary actor-director Raj Kapoor and Krishna Raj Kapoor. Aside from Riddhima, Rishi and Neetu are parents to a son, actor Ranbir Kapoor.