Akshay Kumarwho marked 35 years in Bollywood, recently spoke about how the industry’s treatment of stars changes with their box-office success and shared how he handles failures.
Ups and downs in a long career
In conversation with ABP News, Akshay said, “I have seen many ups and downs in my life. I have given consecutive flops, sometimes 15–16 in a row, and I have also delivered consecutive hits. So in life, this is very common. I have worked in about 150 films so far.”He further shared, “I do feel upset on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday when my film doesn’t do well. But on Monday, I start afresh. I begin preparing for my new film. You have to take it in your stride and move forward.”
Handling consecutive failures
“Consecutive flops didn’t just happen once, they happened thrice. Sometimes it was 15 films in a row, sometimes 14. But it is all part of life,” he continued. He said that the more effort you put into a film, the harder it is to accept failure. Akshay said, “You give 80 days to a film, then dub for it, then promote it and when it fails to impress the audience, it does hurt. I feel like sitting alone and not talking to anyone. My wife understands this phase, so she supports me and tells my kids: ‘Leave papa alone, he will be okay in a few days.’”
Film industry’s changing attitude
The Jolly LLB 3 star also spoke about the film industry’s treatment of actors during such times. He shared, “Your rooms keep changing size depending on the performance of your last film. When your film has performed well, you receive a presidential suite, sometimes vice-presidential, and other times just a regular room. This doesn’t happen to me now, but I experienced it in the beginning of my career.”He further added, “Once, I was doing a film with two heroes. I won’t name the other actor, but since his previous film was a hit, he got a bigger room while I was given a small one. I still remember walking into his room and thinking: ‘Why is my room not so big?’ But then I realised it was because my films hadn’t worked.”“One needs to take these things in stride and move forward. It was some producers who did this, not all. I never complained of this partiality, thinking at least I was getting a room. I come from a place where 24 people lived in one room. I’m talking about my time and life in Chandni Chowk. We were a joint family,” he concluded. On the work front, he is currently basking on the success of his latest release, ‘Jolly LLB 3’ which also stars Arshad Warsi in the lead role.
