Bollywood was never my aim: Mahira Khan

Hindi film industry was not Mahira Khan's aim. The Pakistani actress who made her Bollywood debut with Shah Rukh Khan's Raees last year was not allowed to promote the movie in India due to bilateral tensions between India and Pakistan.

Raees was not released in Pakistan as well.

Khan spoke about this on HARDtalk on BBC World News saying that she was angry as well as disappointed at the time.

"At that time I was angry," she said. "I was sad and angry and there were moments of disappointment and just hurt, you know. Now I've come to a place where I believe that anger doesn't really make me a better actor. It doesn't do anything for me as a person, so I've let go of that, because at that time I was in the mix of it."

On whether it stalled her career, Khan said Bollywood was never her aim. Her focus has always been Pakistan.

"Currently I just feel it's just something else to be working and be part of this movement of the film industry (in Pakistan) at the moment. Because how I look at it, is that 20 years from now when either my son or kids from today want to become actors, we would have set this industry for them, which they won't have to struggle so much," added the 33-year-old actress.

Khan is all set for her upcoming release, Verna, which is based on the rape culture and politics in Pakistan. This has created a controversy in Pakistan, but Khan knows to take everything in her stride.

"I don't think that I can tell any story better than the story of my own country, than the stories of my own countrymen," said the actress. "I want to be able to bring out stories like 'Verna', as well as stories which are of the modern and new generation like 'Ho Mann Jahaan', which is a film I did of the youth of Pakistan. So I want to be that person. Also, because we are artistes, I think that's a problem we all suffer. We are dreamers, so we are constantly looking at this is going to happen, and this is honestly all I am thinking about all the time, that one day I will go to a cinema house and there just won't be enough space to fill it."