How Hrithik Roshan overcame his stammer: 'You can compare it to hell'

Hrithik Roshan has carved a niche for himself in Bollywood as an ace dancer and an action star. But did you know that Hrithik had to battle against a stammer for 22 years?

Actor Hrithik Roshan has had to fight back against many setbacks in his career, but did you know that he worked day and night for several years to overcome a childhood stammer? The actor called it 'hell' in a 2009 interview.

Hrithik Roshan is one of the biggest stars in Bollywood.

Appearing on Farah Khan Kunder's show Tere Mere Beach Mein, Hrithik had opened up about his speech impediment. He'd said, "The minute you start talking, you get stuck and you don't know why? Right from your toes to the ends of your hair strands, you are in complete shock. Your heart palpitates, you don't understand and you are aware of people looking at you. You can compare it to hell."

He had mentioned how it was particularly traumatic when he was child. "Unfortunately, it's one of those handicaps that is made fun of. Especially kids, you can't blame them but they end up being mean because it looks funny. So the childhood of a person suffering from a problem like this is pure hell... you have to go through all those little moments of hell," an Indian Express story had quoted him as saying.

His sister, Sunaina, had written about it in a 2018 blog: "He defeated another major hurdle in life and that was overcoming or rather finding a way to live with his stammer. He says it has been his greatest battle. I remember watching him at the age of 13 as he would sit and read aloud for hours, sometimes alone in the bathroom every single day, morning and night without fail."

She continued, "For 22 years I saw him do this. He would record his voice and play it back, again and again, day after day, year after year to know what words had to be worked upon and he would practice those over and over till he got it right. He had a small board up in his room with those Hindi words on it and would keep repeating them every chance he got. He looked like a person determined to learn how to talk without ever feeling like he was a victim. Sometimes, he would shout his lines out so loud that you could hear him from the street below the building. He was possessed by his will to succeed and He Did!"

Hrithik delivered two back-to-back hits in 2019 -- Super 30 and War. He will next be seen in Fighter, opposite Deepika Padukone.