Zoya Akhtar on The Archies cast not looking like ‘they are from India’: ‘Are you saying fair people aren’t Indians?’

Zoya Akhtar‘s The Archies, starring Suhana Khan, Khushi Kapoor, Agastya Nanda and others, is all set to drop on Netflix soon. The film is an adaption of the American comic series Archies. The filmmaker has now reacted to the film’s cast being trolled online for being Bollywood star kids and not looking like they hail from India.

Responding to the trolling, Zoya, in an interview with Mid Day said, “I don’t know if [the trolling] is about my films. It’s about all films now. Everyone gets trolled!” When the interviewer brought to Zoya’s notice that there was one tweet in particular that went viral, was about how she had finally shown Indians for what they always wanted to be—white people, she said, “Well, they are all Indians. Are you saying fair people aren’t Indians? How do we define what an Indian looks like? It could be Hrithik Roshan. It could be Mr Rajinikanth, Diljit Dosanjh, or Mary Kom. That’s the beauty of India.”

While The Archies is the first official adaption of the popular comic series, Bollywood has used its theme and character traits in films like Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikander, and Karan Johar’s Kuch Kuch Hota Hai that starred Shah Rukh Khan. His daughter Suhana Khan will debut with Zoya’s film alongside Khushi Kapoor (daughter of Sridevi-Boney Kapoor), and Agastya Nanda (Amitabh Bachchan’s grandson).

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Zoya believes that her film is far more faithful to the comics”Thematically, yes [we have dealt with this before]. But this is the OG Archies! So you can’t stay away from the [love] triangle, or Jughead [Vedang Raina] liking food, and there is Midge [Dot], Dilton [Yuvraj Menda]…”

The Archies’ trailer was launched at Netflix’s Tudum festival in Brazil last week, the film will drop on the streaming platform in July.