There’s Hope The Second Time Around
Hi Folks,
This one is on hope. I do realize that the film industry, be it in
the US or India, is as much about broken dreams as it is about
success. I also realize that it is easy to critique and tough to
enact. So this one celebrates the folks who did not succeed the first
time around, rejuvinated and reinvented and had a successful second
innings, which wiped out the frustrations in the first. As a
gentleman from TiE once said, being fired was the best thing that
happened to him, since he discovered what his true talent was. So
here we go, some living examples:
Shekhar Kapur: An ordinary to not so successful actor, who realized
that his true love lay in direction. He continues to flourish.
Prem Kishen: The son of actor Premnath and my former neighbor in
Bombay, came in a movie called Jaan Hazir Hain, with none other than
Shekhar Kapur. The movie bombed, so did their respective careers.
Later he started the television company called Cinevista. Today,
after Balaji, this one is the most successful TV production house
which has also made moderately successful films (Garv, Shhhhhhh)
Asha Chandra: An actress who never did anything major in the world of
acting, went on to become one of Mumbai’s best teachers of acting.
For a long time she and Roshan Taneja were the big guns of teaching
acting aspirants. Later on the Namit Kishore’s etc emerged.
Subhash Ghai: Another extremely forgettable career as an actor paved
the way for a very successful career as a director.
Aruna Irani: She was opposite AB in Bombay to Goa. Her leading roles
went out of the window after that, but strong character role kept her
in circulation for a long, long time. Currently she dabbles as a
successful producer with her brother Indra Kumar (of Raja Hindustani
fame)
Sometimes a change in career strategy or a change in medium does all
the tricks.
Kiran Kumar: Had a highly unsuccessful run as a leading guy, then the
same height and voice made him a ferocious and “in demand” bad guy.
Sometimes when you aspire small you end up getting big, that too is a
successful second time. Examples in this category include:
Feroz Khan – Came from Bangalore to become a stunt man, stayed as a
leading guy and a director (that is until he lost his marbles post
Jaanbaz). Rumour has it that he would bet in pool (billiards) to
support himself when he first came.
Dharmendra/Shatru/Vinod K: All started as bad guys and then ended up
retiring as lead guys.
Govinda: The boy from Virar, was always a good dancer and that is
what he came to audition for. His fate ka “Ilzam” and now the guy
ends up making others dance to his tunes (especially now that he is a
MP)
Even amongst the current lot there have been a lot of cases of not
got it right the first time, but got it right thereafter.
Rajeev Bhatia also called Akshay Kumar: the cook from Bangkok, who
was asked to go back to cooking and martial arts post his first film,
has been brewing a very successful career thereafter.
Juhi Chawala: The academic genius (head girl of her school- Fort
Covent in Mumbai and known to study all night long at the ICAI
building in Cuffe Parade, let’s jsut say I know) came in with a
whimper called Sultanate and slowly carved out a kingdom for herself
in tinseltown.
At times personal tragedy can make you come into this line. Case in
point is Sanjay Suri (a far off relative), who lost his dad to
terrorits in Kashmir, moved to Delhi, took up modelling and then the
final move to Bombay for acting.
Sometimes the medium helps: Brothers Rohit and Ronit Roy, Amar
Upadhaya, Rahul Roy, Fazal Khan (Aamir’s brother) all survived due to
Television (do I hear them singing “Television….someone still loves
you!!!)
Despite popular belief, sometimes going outside your comfort zone
also helps. Prime example is fomer St Stephens best all round
student, Kabir Bedi. From being a struggler in Bombay he left to go
to Italy for a series called Sandokan. Till date that remains his
most popular stint.
Ditto with Irfan Khan, it was post Warrior that the world woke up to
his talent.
So in a nutshell, there is nothing wrong in evaluating yourself if
things are not going right, redirecting , repositioning and then
going after a different goal.
Here’s to all of you’ll who aspire…..Unko hazaron salaam, kabhie ruk te nahin, kabhie jhuk te nahin, chahe kutch bhi ho anjaam!!!
Sincerely,
Vivek “explore different facets of who you are” Kumar
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
correction
indra kumar didnt direct raja hindustani …
but he is a ’successful’ commercial director in his own sense (beta, Dil, Ishq, and the corny – Aashiq,Mann, Rishtey, Masti, Pyare mohan)
In fact aruna irani was the last choice for the role of the vamp-mother in Beta … initially it was waheeda rehman ..later the role came to her coz she was his sister…. and she did a brilliant job
WOW … a pretty good post …. must say u must be an industry insider for this !!! Real good read this one .. kaafi inspirational ..
Who can forget AB Jr’s career which got a zing post Yuva …
Hey did u know .. mithun chakraborthy .. despite winning the national award for his (debut) bengali film Mrigya … and doing a 2 minute stint as an extra in Do anjaane, was so much into poverty that once when a journalist asked for his interview … he agreed on the condition that he should be treated to a lunch (he hadnt eaten anything for the past two days)
Juhi chalwa … “lets just say i know” …. hmmmm ???
Irffan – warrior … world woke up .. fairly correct
irffan – Haasil … INDIA WOKE UP … fairly correct
The line from Shaan took the cake vivek
Thanks for this post …. mazaa aa gaya …
Kartik:
Post Do Anjane and Mrigya, Mithun was so disappointed that he went to Jaya Bhaduri, whom he was knowing earliar also. He asked Jaya to recommond him to become secy of Amitabh. Jaya consoled him and advised him to stay with confidence.
Vivek:
Perhaps Dharmendra did not start his career as bad boy. Yes in his first major success ” Phhool aur pathar” he played a role of a thief but he never played a complete villain. Years later he played negative shaded role in Qayamat but that could be said because circumstances compelled him to kidnap sister of his friend Shatrughan Sinha.
Shatrughan Sinha was seen in a few minut role of a police inspector in Manoj Kumar’s Saajan before he became famous as villain.
Amazing post, Vivek.
Whereas on one hand, this ‘ummeed’ inspires fallen heroes, on the other, it also ‘damages’ the industry because of a few over-confident souls, I dont want to name them but ‘they’ are all around- pop ’stars’ who would never agree to be a bad singer, music directors who would never agree to copying, directors who would not stop making films to learn something new in the name of OLD IS GOLD…
I do not know the reason why some people get inspired from a failure while others look at it otherwise.
Digressing from Films, we have the example of Navjot Singh Sidhu or even a Mandira Bedi, or even the former model turned cook show hosts we see on TV.
Its a matter of self-belief and conviction. If you believe in playing a second innings or trying something different, go ahead.But your outcome might also depend a little on fate and public acceptance.Then there is also the Underdog-sympathy that works in some cases.
Perhaps thats a reason why one time wonders find it hard to strike back.
I cant say if the concept has any cultural bearings, but I do see people being more forgiving and accepting of a different facet of a celebrity or public-eye-candy outside of India.