Success can often be a fleeting feeling, and it becomes more so when it’s connected to the movie business. During her stint as an actor, Twinkle Khanna worked in less than 20 films, and called it quits in just five years. Soon after, she married actor Akshay Kumar and turned entrepreneur, and later she started her career as a writer. During a recent event, Twinkle recalled the failures she has seen in her life, especially professionally, and how she is, in fact, grateful for them.
While appearing on the Tweak India Summit for 2025, Twinkle was paired with Aamir Khan’s daughter, social worker and entrepreneur Ira Khan, and CEO of Edelweiss Mutual Fund Radhika Gupta. The trio were asked about failure, and here, Twinkle opened up about her career as an actor. “I failed very publicly when I was very young. I was on the silver screen, and I was doing a job that I don’t think I was suited for. After that, I became sort of thick-skinned. I don’t look at failures like potholes; I look at them like trampolines. I get in there, and I jump back up. That is my formula for dealing with failures,” said Twinkle.
Ira added to that and argued that the best way to deal with failures is to first experience them in low-stakes situations. She said, “I would like to suggest that you try something new, something you have never done before. Experience looking stupid and feeling stupid in a low-stakes environment. Go to learn something you have no idea about and take this new class with an absolute stranger so you can look really silly in front of them. Let them judge you and get used to failing at something which is not very high stakes.”
Twinkle has always been very candid about her thoughts. She has previously said that she never wanted to be an actor, but it was her mother, Dimple Kapadia, who pushed her to be in this profession. She told Divya Jain, “Like many people here, I’m sure, whatever their parents did… if they had a mithai (sweets) shop, you became a mithaiwala. It was as simple as that. My parents were very keen; my mother was very keen. I had applied for my CA entrance exam because that’s what I wanted to do, strangely. And my mother told me, ‘This is the only time that you can become an actress, and later you can do what you like.’”
Twinkle made her debut in the movies with the 1995 film Barsaat. She then appeared in films like Mela, International Khiladi, Baadshah, Jab Pyaar Kisi Se Hota Hai, among others.
