Imran Khan on ‘competing’ with Ranbir Kapoor in early years of career: Never believed in creative competition

Actor Imran Khan views filmmaking as a personal experience, dismissing the idea of measuring success by numbers.

While the internet chatter may be about pitting Ranveer Singh and Ranbir Kapoor together, but around the early 2010's, the competition had a third player: Imran Khan.

Imran Khan with Ranbir Kapoor

Imran and Ranbir had begun their careers around the same time, and in fact, appeared on a popular chat show together, too. But the former decided to leave it all in 2015, and quit acting. Today, as he prepares for his comeback, how does he view competition?

He got candid on The Right Angle with Sonal Kalra, “I had never bought into the notion of creative competition. It reduces cinema into some kind of a competitive sport. I don’t see that as doing full justice to the films that we make."

For Imran, the experience of watching and making films is deeply personal, something that cannot be standardised. “Someone may be emotionally moved by a film, someone may not. That’s fine. But measuring it as a metric of numbers, I’ve never bought into that. I don’t really subscribe to that,” he added.

Imran is only relieved that he gets to do it all over again, at a time of his own choosing. “How many of us dream of making films, of being a part of a movie? For me, every time I get an opportunity to do that is a win, because there are people out there who would want to make a film but will never get a chance.”