Shahid Kapoor - Stardust - October 2021

“Professionally, I think I’m in a good place.” - Shahid Kapoor

A little under-stated, perhaps a bit under- rated, yet Shahid Kapoor is one actor who can soar to newer heights with each of his performances. In a throwback interview to Stardust, Shahid opens up about his personal and professional life.

What is the most exciting thing happening in your life right now?

Well, on the personal front, it is obviously fatherhood. It is very exciting and very new.

You are a hands-on father ?

I don’t know what the standards of a hands-on father are. But yes, I am trying to do everything I possibly can. I’ve been told that I am a bit obsessive and a bit too into it. And that I need to chill out and go work. That’s what I’ve been hearing a lot now.

Scared of being replaced in that time probability?

Sure. Sometimes you have to be okay. It is about prioritisation and what is more important. You decide this is more important to me and this is why I’ll prioritise it. Whatever else happens is a natural consequence of the situation, and you’ve to learn to be peaceful and okay with it.

That’s on the personal front. Professionally?

Professionally, I think I’m in a good place. I feel very happy with the way the choices I made have turned out. A lot of times you make good choices, but somehow the film doesn’t turn out the way you want it to. And that’s happened to me sometimes. That helps you understand that your choices can only be a limited part of the end result eventually. The actor is not the captain of the ship. You’re on a ship, you are a big participant, but you are not the captain of the ship. There are so many other factors which impact the final outcome of a product.

But the responsibility is not just the captain’s, or the director’s. It is some part, the crew’s and the actor’s too. Despite having steered it to the best of his ability, how do you account for storms and rough weather?

Absolutely. That is why I think it is very important to work with people you get along with, because while you are making movies, life happens, and that essentially, is a huge part. You need to be a team, need to be together, you need to feel a sense of team-spirit to be able to fight all these things that happen.

Often, in the film industry there is this fake need to be in love with each other. A forced need to be a family. When you know it is not going to be long-lasting, then you should get into it knowing that this is, in all probability, a finite journey. We’ll stay in touch. Of course, there are those people who come in to your life in all kind of random ways and then they just stick. But it is a rare occurrence. It is not something that’ll happen all the time. So I really feel that I would rather put my energies in the work, in collaborating, in finding workequations which are friendly and which are beneficial, which create a comfort, which I think is very important. And trust is very important. But let’s become a family and all that, is a bit forced in the industry. I see it as a problem, because it creates a lot of expectations. I shouldn’t say fake, I would say it is a bit forced. It is not completely natural. It is like, you feel the need to be in a heightened state of happiness whenever you meet the fraternity. At a gathering, everybody is in a heightened state of happiness, and if that state wasn’t there, probably the warmth would be more real. And you can feel the difference. It is a pitch difference. When you meet some people, they are like, “Hey, what’s up? How are you?’ They give you a bit of a smile and you’re hugging, and you know it’s real. And then there are others, when they go (raises his pitch), ‘Heyyyy, soooo how have you been?’ You can tell that it is fake, and I have to be fake for the next three minutes.

“I don’t want the audience to feel that I fooled them after the film releases that this guy promised that this is going to be the best film of his career, and he probably must’ve known.”

When you work in a film for a period of time, six months, one year sometimes, the entire team becomes a family. But when you wrap up, that comes to an end and you move on to the next project. How strong are these relationships the actor forms over each film?

Is every new release the best film that you’ve worked on? Shouldn’t it be?

No.You should be real about it with yourself. You must promote every film with a lot of positivity, in a professional manner. That is very essential. At the same time, it’s better not to live in denial. When you create that perception in your head that this is the best film of my career, you will get disappointed. It is not possible for every film to be the best of your career. It is possible to do good films, it’s possible to do credible films. It’s equally real to be part of really crappy films.

Isn’t one exerting ones best efforts in every film that one is doing?

But by smiling and shouting and yelling, that bad film is not going to end up doing well. So it’s like you’re creating a false reality for yourself which will crumble, and then you’ll go into depression. So, it’s very important to project positivity when you promote a film. It is very largely what people expect from our film fraternity. This is considered the line of entertainment so people expect to feel positive and happy and elated when they experience either our movies or the actors, it naturally gets related to that. So I would want to project myself with a lot of positivity and I would want to project my films in a manner where I am putting out what the film is about. I don’t want the audience to feel that I fooled them after the film releases that this guy promised that this is going to be the best film of his career, and he probably must’ve known.