Don’t give her an award because she died: Shekhar Kapur on Sridevi's national award

By Pooja Shetty

on April 13, 2018

The late Sridevi was named the Best Actress for her role as a vengeful mother in the much loved film Mom. And while her husband and two daughters are overjoyed at the big win, there is someone who mentioned that he was quite against the idea.

That's right, one of Sridevi's dear friend and director Shekhar Kapur, who is also the jury head mentioned that he was opposed to Sridevi receiving this award. In an interview to a leading daily Kapur explained why.

He said, "The best actress is Sridevi for Mom and I promise you it is not my relationship with her. Every morning when I came here, I would ask everyone to vote once again. I would look at all the actors, talk about them and I would say, ‘there should be not Sridevi, not Sridevi’! We used take a vote and it always came back to Sridevi. It was me who fought that it shouldn’t be Sridevi. We are all emotionally involved with Sridevi. I used to say, ‘don’t give her an award because she died, it is unfair on the other girls’. They have also worked hard for 10-12 years, they too have a career."

Well, what do you think of that?

Meanwhile Sridevi's husband Boney Kapoor and daughters Janhvi and Khushi released a statement of thanks. It read, "We are overjoyed to know that the Jury has conferred the Best Actor Award to Sridevi for her performance in MOM. It’s a very special moment for all of us. She was always a perfectionist and it showed in all the 300 plus films she did. She was not just a super actor but a Super Wife and a Super Mom. Its time to celebrate her life and her achievements. She is not with us today but her legacy will always live on. “We thank the Government of India, the Hon’ble Jury Members for this honour. We also take this opportunity to thank all our friends, her fans who have been sending us congratulatory messages. Thank you.”

The 65th National Film Awards were announced today by a jury consisting of screenwriter Imtiaz Hussain, lyricist Mehboob, actress Gautami Tadimalla, Kannada director P Sheshadri, Aniruddha Roy Chowdhury, Ranjit Das, Rajesh Mapuskar, Tripurari Sharma and Rumi Jaffrey. They were lead by Shekhar Kapur.