Ranbir Kapoor was ‘down’ when he began shooting Animal after Shamshera bombed, reveals Anil Kapoor: ‘Sab mujhe dekh…’

Anil Kapoor reveals witnessing how low Ranbir Kapoor was after Shamshera's failure on the sets of their film Animal

After portraying the role of Sanjay Dutt in his biopic Sanju (2018), Bollywood heartthrob Ranbir Kapoor was away from the silver screen for 4 long years. He made his much-awaited comeback in 2022 with Shamshera, opposite Vaani Kapoor. Fans were delighted to witness RK’s magic onscreen again. But the film emerged as a box office disaster and received heavy criticism online. Soon after, Ranbir began shooting for Sandeep Reddy Vanga’s Animal (2023), which became a blockbuster hit. But Anil Kapoor has now revealed that RK was ‘down’ when he came on the sets of Animal, after Shamshera flopped.

Ranbir Kapoor and Anil Kapoor in Animal

Recently at the FICCI Frames event, Anil Kapoor opened up about the criticism that actors face, and the impact it holds. Giving Ranbir Kapoor’s example, his onscreen father Anil shared, “I remember that when I was shooting on the sets of Animal. Ranbir came there, and his film Shamshera had just been released. He was very down, and he came and said, ‘Sab mujhe dekh rahe hai.’ Itni badhi flop di hai maine’. (Everyone is looking at me. I have delivered such a big flop.) I told him, ‘Ek acha shot dete hai, kal tak bhul jayega. (Let’s just give it a good shot. You’ll forget everything by tomorrow).’”

Anil recalled, “We were doing a photoshoot, and I told him, ‘Don’t take it to heart, man.’ You’re just imagining that people are looking at you or thinking about your flop. Success and failure are not in your hand; once you have accepted what happened, once you are doing honest work, you forget about it all. That is what happened, and by the next day we were jamming and discussing things with the director.”

The film featured Ranbir Kapoor as Anil Kapoor’s son and followed the story of their strained relationship. Animal went on to become RK’s highest-grossing release and one of the highest-grossing Hindi films of all time. Currently, fans are eagerly waiting for the sequel, Animal Park.