Playing a star continuously can be exhausting and unfulfilling: Hrithik Roshan

The actor on the disadvantage of the ‘star’ label, ditching it for certain roles, and how the environment created by a filmmaker can help a performance more than directions

Edited excerpts:

In India, being a star means doing certain things the fans like. When I saw Super 30, it seemed to me that you had shed all the baggage of Hrithik Roshan the star, and it’s probably the reason I liked the performance so much.

That movie didn’t require a star’s toolbox. I was set free because of the sheer nature of the film and the character. The part in me that wants to be real and honest is stronger than the part that wants to be the star. That makes it easy. I do the ‘star’ as a job, I do this for fulfillment. The ‘star’ is something that has been bestowed upon me. I’m grateful for it, though. I’ve set myself free on many occasions because I get tired of playing a star again and again. I don’t think I can do that continuously. Considering the degree of effort I put into that, the returns are comparatively less.

You’ve worked with a lot of directors who are known to get good performances out of the people they’ve worked with, like Sanjay Leela Bhansali or Zoya Akhtar. When you take on movies like Guzaarish, can you tell me something Bhansali said that changed how you look at your performances?

No, there wasn’t anything he told me. But, I think, the environment that gets created when a man is searching for something unimaginably high… and he has that point set in his mind and heart, and the scene and the performance needs to touch that. Because he creates that environment — these are attributes of all great filmmakers — for the performance to blossom. They don’t tell you what to do. It’s the atmosphere, the things they talk to you about on the set, and the kind of thoughts they want your brain to be fed. All that goes into creating that moment when the camera is on. That’s what he and others do, which is constantly waiting and creating, waiting and creating… It was a pleasure to work with Mr. Bhansali.  

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