Riding high on the success of his recent high grossing and controversial film, Kabir Singh, Shahid Kapoor spoke about his 16 years long journey in cinema and defended the right of actors to play characters with negative shades or the anti-hero at the India Today Conclave Mumbai, 2019. The actor has never shied away from playing negative roles and some of his flawed characters have been the most appreciated ones, be it in Udta Punjab or Padmavat and now as Kabir Singh in the eponymous film which has gone on to become among the 10 biggest grossers at the Indian box office at Rs 278 crore. Kapoor stated that an actor, he has never repeated his look in the past seven years, always eager to explore new characters, roles and looks. The audience, he said, is a few steps ahead of those in the film fraternity and are accepting of new stories and characters. Responding to the controversy around Kabir Singh, in which he plays a “flawed character who loves passionately from an honest place”, Kapoor said that the viewers must decide what they want to take back from a film and even when people see him on screen playing a negative role, they know that he is only acting. In a crisp 20-minute long session, he spoke about how he is glad that he had to wait a little long to taste success, his choice of films and his family and even danced with a few audience members to a song from his film.

 TAKEAWAY

Cinema mirrors life and some of the most potent experiences of a person’s life can be in a cinema hall

Kabir Singh is a sum total of 16 years of work and even as he faced success and failure, he used his time to hone his craft and watch others’ work

While Kabir Sing may have portrayed a flawed character who ran into controversy for showing the protagonist use force on a girl he was in love with, Kapoor said that in an adult film, audiences have the basic discretion to understand what is right and wrong.

QUOTES

“I hated the thought that people felt I had a pretty face; I found the chocolate boy looks juvenile. Cinema is way beyond that, it mirrors life.”

“I wanted to change the game and surprise audiences because there is a need within me to do something different.”

“No one said anything when Shah Rukh Khan took Shilpa Shetty by her leg and pushed her down from a terrace in Baazigar.”

(While responding to the criticism to Kabir Singh’s character)

“Children are born of you, they are not yours. We should love and accept them for what they choose to be. All I want to do is to instill in them the values that I got from my parents.”

“My wife was among the first people to tell me to do Kabir Singh. She loved the character, that he could love someone so passionately.”

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