'Do a Nose Job, Change your Name': Jacqueline Fernandez Opens up about her Struggles

 A Sri Lankan actress and former model, Jacqueline Fernandez is one of the most influential actresses today in Bollywood. She made her debut in 2009 in Sujoy Ghosh’s film Aladin. Through the course of her acting career, she entertained the audience with films like the Housefull series, Kick, Judwaa 2, Race to name a few. Recently, she also made her digital debut with a Netflix series titled Drive co-starring Sushant Singh Rajput. 

However, it’s not been an easy journey for Jacqueline to carve her mark in the industry, being an outsider. She faced her share of struggles, and also became the target of numerous advice thrown at her. 

In a recent interview with Pinkvilla, Jacqueline reveals that she was asked to change her name and many asked her to get a nose job done. "It's been about 10 good years. The craziest thing was that when I came here, I never thought how to stand out or do things differently. I just wanted to be me. So, I didn't put an act! People told me, 'Do a nose job, change your name'. I was like, 'is all this really needed?"

The actress narrates how she was asked to change her name to ‘Muskaan’ because her actual name sounded too western. "I would actually laugh though. I was told to change my name to Muskaan. My agency had these suggestions: Should we change her name because Jacqueline Fernandez is too western. How do we crack the industry with such a name? I was sure I'm not changing my name" she said.

Further, revealing the bizarre advices that came her way, she shares, "They wanted me to make my eyebrows darker. And the one feature of mine which I loved since childhood was my nose and then, someone asks me to change my nose."

It does not stop her. Jacqueline faced struggles finding a house because she was a ‘firang actress’. She also recalls an incident when she went to a Diwali party in traditional attire and was called out by her industry friends for ‘trying too hard to fit in.’ 

However, despite all the obstacles, Jacqueline is paving her way all the up and has a massive fan following amongst the audience.