She was last seen in Garv (2004), playing Salman Khan‘s sister. But then she disappeared for 19 years- only to resurface now with a web show. Akanksha Malhotra reveals the reason why she disappeared from the film scene.

“I literally met my future husband at the premiere of Garv, I was introduced to him. I had signed five big films at that point, which included No Entry, Welcome, a film with Rajkumar Santoshi. But when man proposes, God disposes. Within 13 days of us meeting my husband proposed to me, it was a surprise planned by my family. And then, I got married and moved to New York, I was there for eight years and had my first child there,” shares the actor, whi distanced herself from acting offers.

Subsequently, she had to pull out of all the signed films then. What many people don’t know is that she is related to the Kapoors- her grandmother was the yesteryear actor Bina Rai, whose late husband, Prem Nath Malhotra, was brother-in-law to Raj Kapoor.

Now that she is back to Mumbai for good, Malhotra adds that this web show, Unreal directed by Rohan Sippy, came her way. “He reached out to me for this role. I am getting back to acting after almost two decades. I am not doing this for money, it is just the passion I had, to satisfy that creative space in my life. I obviously had a lot of clauses for this role,” she says.

Prodded further, she acknowledges that OTT projects enjoy the freedom to include strong language and bold scenes. “That was a complete no for me. And this role was nice and clean,” she says.