Ranbir Kapoor, on-screen mother Charu Shankar’s one year age-gap sparks more debate around Animal

As soon as the topic sparked a conversation in a subreddit, many redditors drew parallels between this incident and several others from the past. One user commented, “Shefali Shah was younger than Akshay when she played his mom in Waqt. That record is probably still untouched.” At the time of Vipul Amrutlal Shah’s Waqt: The Race Against Time (2005), Akshay Kumar was 38, whereas Shefali was 32.

Charu Shankar is just one year older than RK yet she played his mother in Animal. A big facepalm.
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While some redditors pointed out the situation of 39-year-old Riddhi Dogra playing the mother to 58-year-old Shah Rukh Khan in Atlee Kumar’s Jawan, others dismissed this argument by noting that she was just his foster mother in the movie.

Watch Animal trailer here:

“Sanjeev Kumar was the same age as Amitabh and Dharmendra still played a much older character than them in Sholay,” one user observed, while another pointed out, “Nandamuri Balakrishna is 31 years older than Honey Rose who played his wife and also mother to the younger Balakrishna (whose heroine is Shruthi Hassan, 25 years younger to Balakrishna) in Veera Simha Reddy.”

Some also took the opportunity to heap praise on Charu Shankar for her versatility and performance, especially in the series Siyaasat.

Released on December 1, the Sandeep Reddy Vanga film has so far grossed Rs 360 crore worldwide. Meanwhile, its domestic nett collection currently stands at Rs 202.57 crore. On Sunday, the film surpassed the three-day collection of Siddharth Anand’s Shah Rukh Khan-starrer Pathaan, although it fell short of the record set by Atlee Kumar’s SRK film Jawan.

In her review of Animal, The Indian Express’ Shubhra Gupta wrote: “This Ranbir Kapoor-Anil Kapoor-Rashmika Mandanna film ricochets off target after having raced full-tilt to the mid-point: if it had come to an end at the interval, it would have made its point.”