Javed Akhtar defends Rashmika Mandanna over accent trolling, calls her "Tamil actor"
The lyricist said critics of the actor's pronunciation should try speaking Tamil, after she spoke about online trolling on Koffee With Karan.
Writer and lyricist Javed Akhtar has hit back at social media users who ridicule actor Rashmika Mandanna's accent. Hindustan Times reported that he wrote on X: "This fake and baseless linguistic superiority is not acceptable."
Akhtar suggested that anyone who objects to how she pronounces words should be handed a few lines of Tamil, which he described as the world's oldest spoken language, to see how they cope with it. The same post referred to Mandanna as a "Tamil actor". NDTV made that label the focus of its headline and said there had been a reaction online, but the summary it made available did not describe that reaction.
His comments followed Mandanna's appearance with her husband, actor Vijay Deverakonda, on the newest episode of Koffee With Karan season 9. NDTV said the episode set off the latest round of criticism of her accent. According to Hindustan Times, she spoke on the show about the online abuse she has received.
Mandanna said critics had targeted her from the moment she began working in films. They went after her performances, the languages she speaks, her acting and her accent, she said.
She said she never let that criticism determine which roles she accepted. Her goal was to work across every film industry instead of staying in one, and to speak every language instead of a single one.
She began accepting films of all kinds early on, she said. Appearing in projects as different from each other as Animal and Girlfriend has been deeply rewarding for her as a performer.
Hindustan Times reported that the way she delivers Hindi lines comes up again and again online, and some viewers have objected to how she sounds in Hindi-language films. The paper said the argument flared up again when the horror comedy Thamma came out in 2025 and once more with Cocktail 2 in 2026. Her work in Animal, Chhaava and Sikandar met with much the same response.
Mandanna said she could not understand why sounding South Indian was seen as a fault. People had pointed to her South Indian accent, she said, but "I am from the South of India. So I am going to have an accent." She called it unreasonable to expect anything different.
Sources: Hindustan Times, Javed Akhtar says those who have problem with Rashmika Mandanna's pronunciation should be asked to speak Tamil, calls out ‘linguistic superiority’; NDTV, Javed Akhtar Calls Rashmika Mandanna 'A Tamil Actor' While Defending Her Accent, Internet Reacts.
