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Gurmeet Choudhary: I was told ‘People watch you for free on TV, why will anyone buy tickets for your film’
Actor Gurmeet Choudhary says though people were willing to meet him to discuss prospects of a film, “they somewhere didn’t want to take risk with a TV actor”.
As a lot of stories about unfair practices in the Hindi film industry — from groupism, nepotism to sidelining of outsiders — have come to light recently, actor Gurmeet Choudhary shares his struggle story of trying to shift focus from TV to films.
“My dream was to be on the 70mm screen. But after sincerely doing TV for years, there came a point when I felt that I should try films because I wanted to take on a new challenge in life. I had achieved a lot on TV and I wanted to do a film. And during that time I was told many that ‘you are a TV star, when people can watch you for free on TV who will buy a ticket to watch you on screen? I faced it a lot,” shares the actor, who made his big screen debut with 2015 film, Khamoshiyan.
Choudhary admits that people were always willing to meet him to discuss prospects of films but he adds “they didn’t want to take the risk with a TV actor”.
However, he says things changed drastically after the late actor Sushant Singh Rajput successfully transitioned from TV to films.
“He proved that even TV stars have audiences in theatres. If you give us a break then we will also get audience. He opened doors for me in films. Before that I was struggling to get films and people were not taking me seriously. But after Sushant proved himself and I was also given a grand launch. That prejudice ended then. I keep getting films and people started taking me seriously,” the 36-year-old shares.
Admitting that nepotism and favouritism are a big bane in the film industry, Choudhary says that even the audience is also to be blamed for this culture.
“I want to ask the audience that if you have so much problem with star kids then go and watch the films of newcomers who are getting launched. The audience has to show interest in them as well but they are more interested in star kids. If a new actor is launched today even if it a small film, they should support them, write good comments on their posts and stop crying ‘Nepotism, nepotism’,” says the actor, who will soon resume the shoot of his next film The Wife.
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