Mumbai: Actor Anil Kapoor shared that in his initial years in Hindi cinema he was insecure about actor Jackie Shroff, with whom he has worked in films such as ‘Andar Baahar’, ‘Karma’ and ‘Parinda’, among many others.
Anil made the revelation in ‘Koffee With Karan’ Season 7, where he was accompanied with his ‘JugJugg Jeeyo’ co-actor Varun Dhawan.
Amid the show, the host Karan Johar questioned Anil about nepotism, a word that was introduced by actress Kangana Ranaut in the chat show itself. She had called the filmmaker the “flag-bearer of nepotism” in Bollywood and also “movie mafia”.
Anil shared: “I don’t take it seriously. You just keep on doing your work and your work speaks. If you are an actor you can’t pass on the legacy to your brother or your son. It’s either you have it or you don’t have it.”
Anil added: “When I started my career at that time it was of course Sunny (Deol), there was Sanju (Sanjay Dutt).”
When Karan added Jackie’s name, to which Anil said, “Jackie was an outsider in a way but still he got the first break from Subhash Ghai. So he himself became like an A-lister just with that one announcement. I, at that time, was doing bit roles, I was doing south Indian films. I did feel kind of, not feeling good about it. Why?”
Karan then asked Anil if he felt that Jackie who was not an insider, was an “outsider who had the privilege of being launched by Subhash Ghai? You felt a little…?”
Anil replied, “I still felt it ya. The day I signed Yash Chopra’s film, I felt, ‘Oh now I’m fine’.
“Did you feel insecure about Jackie’s success at that time?” Karan nudged again.
Anil responded, “Well yeah. He became a huge huge success.”
Recalling an incident, Anil shared: “I remember so well that and he was such a sweet guy. We would be shooting and whenever any autograph book would come to him, he knew they are taking his autograph.
“But (gestures Jackie passing the autograph book to Anil) ‘Sign karna (Sign it)’. I knew that actually all of them had come for him but he would give it to me. Then I would sign and then he would sign.”
