'I always put on a brave face for my parents': Deepika Padukone opens up on contemplating suicide and more

Mental illness is not directly related to one’s professional success, implied Bollywood star Deepika Padukone at a recent event in Mumbai. The Gehraiyaan actress, who has never shied away from addressing questions pertaining to her struggles with depression a few years ago, revealed to the media that although she would cry for “no apparent reason”—and that those tears came from a “hollow place”—she always put up a strong front whenever her folks would fly down from Bangalore. 

“You always want to show your parents that you are fine,” she reasoned. 

But, during one such visit, as her parents were about to leave Mumbai and go back to Bangalore, she broke down yet again. “So my mother asked all the hygiene questions: Is it a boyfriend? Did something happen at work?… But it was ‘different’,” shared the actress, before adding that her mother, Ujjala Padukone, was prompt to take action and that Deepika gives all the “credit” to her mother for catching the early “signs and symptoms”.

For the uninitiated, Deepika Padukone extends help to mental-health patients and spreads awareness about the same through her non-profit profit organisation The Live Laugh Love Foundation. Deepika started the NGO in 2015 following her own triumph over depression. 

On the work front, Deepika was last seen in the film Amazon Prime Video original film Gehraiyaan in which she co-starred with Siddhant Chaturvedi, Ananya Panday and Dhairya Karwa. In the Shakun Batra directorial Deepika portrayed the character of Alisha, who struggles to deal with the demons of her past. The actress won a lot of praises for her layered and nuanced portral of the complex character. 

The actress will next be seen in Shah Rukh Khan and John Abraham starrer Pathaan which is slated to hit the theatres on January 25, 2023.