Shalini Pandey
| Photo Credit: @shalzp/Instagram

Actor Shalini Pandey has opened up about a disturbing incident in which a director of a South Indian film she was working on barged into her vanity van when she was changing clothes. The actor, who made her film debut with 2017’s Arjun Reddy, added that the incident taught her to establish boundaries very early on in her career.

Shalini said this in an interview with Filmygyan, while talking about her experience working with men in the industry. “It’s not that I have worked only with good men in my career, I have also worked with horrid men in my life. I am talking about on-screen, off-screen and within the crew. You just have to have boundaries. I have also faced the most chauvinistic men. That’s also the reality,” said Shalini.

The 31-year-old added that since she was an outsider to the industry, she had nobody to go back to. “Mere pass hota hi nahi tha to ask how one should be in such situations. Now, when I look back, I am glad I was like that. I was naive, but I had hard boundaries. Like, I would snap.”

This is when the actor shared the harrowing incident from when she was 22 years old. “I was doing a South film and this director walks into my van, doesn’t knock, and I was changing. He just opened the door and entered. This is a girl who has just done her first film. People usually tell you to be very sweet and not rub people the wrong way. They be like, ‘otherwise, you won’t get films’. I have been told all that.”

Shalini recounted how she yelled at the director, a reaction she said she was advised against. “Once he left, people told me that I shouldn’t have yelled. But, there has to be manners. Just because I am new, you cannot just enter without knocking. You cannot do that to me. And I realised that is something that I carried with me. I would come across as an angry person to people. But I had to do certain things to protect myself,” said Shalini, adding that she has now learn how to “manipulate such things rather than just snap at people.”

On comparisons with Alia Bhatt:

Meanwhile, in another interview with Instant Bollywood, Shalini addressed being compared with Bollywood superstar Alia Bhatt, stating that she wishes to have her own individuality. “Alia hai! We don’t need another Alia. No one should be another Alia. Because Alia is so amazing. Not just because of her films — of course, she’s incredible onscreen. But personally, from what I’ve seen of Alia offscreen as well, I admire her.

“I don’t want to be that because there is one Alia. Of course, there are so many admirable qualities that you want to take, but I also want to have my own individuality. I want people to look at me for who Shalini is rather than box me into something. But when they compare with love, of course, it’s a great comparison because she’s just lovely,” added Shalini.

Shalini, known for working in films like Arjun Reddy, Mahanati, and NTR: Kathanayakudu, made her Bollywood debut in 2022, with the Ranveer Singh-starrer Jayeshbhai Jordaar. She was last seen in Netflix’s 2024 film Maharaj, co-starring Junaid Khan, and in the streamer’s 2025 series Dabba Cartel, co-starring Shabana Azmi, Jyothika, Nimisha Sajayan, and Anjali Anand.