Vivek Oberoi recently talked of the declining stardom in his career and how he dealt with it. He said that when his films were not doing well, no one would send him bouquets on his birthday. He also talked about the need to maintain a certain lifestyle as an actor to create perception.
Speaking at a Franchise India event, Vivek said, “The film industry has been that kind of industry where one night you feel like you’ve made it, you’ve got everybody lining up behind you spending crores for your time. And, then you have a patch which could be for whatever reasons. But you have a lean patch.”
He added, “You can tell your lean patch by your birthday. Because on your birthday, when you are doing well, there’s no place in the house for the bouquets that come in from producers, directors, co-stars, it’s just filled up. And when your films are not doing well, the number of bouquets start to reduce and you realise, ‘Oh! I am not doing too well, am I?'”.
Opening up about the difficulties actors face in creating a perception, Vivek said, “This is what has empowered me today, where I don’t need to do a movie that I don’t believe in or I don’t like the script because dal-roti chalani hai, EMI bharna hai (I have to run my household, pay my EMI). Lots of people think, ‘Actor hai, isko kya problem hai humare jaise… (He’s an actor, what problems can he possibly have, like us ordinary people…).’ But actors also have their problems, they are used to a certain lifestyle. They are required to create a certain perception, woh perception ka bhi kharcha hai (it costs to maintain that perception). You have to live up to it.”
Vivek’s career took a fall in mid-2000s after starring in some successful films like Company, Saathiya and Yuva. His feud with Salman Khan caused a stir in the industry and after a series of flops that he became part of, Vivek stopped getting much work. He was recently seen in Rohit Shetty’s debut web-series Indian Police Force.
