Nobody even looked at Abhishek Bachchan when he walked into a room, he’d call himself a ‘flop actor’ in front of mom Jaya Bachchan

Also read – ‘Is this why I worked so hard, spent on your education?’: Amitabh Bachchan couldn’t hide his disappointment in son Abhishek

He continued, “You walk into a hotel lobby and you expect someone will come for an autograph, and then, nobody comes. You swallow that, and you keep going. A couple of months later, Dhoom comes out, and you walk into the Marriott and the lobby comes to a standstill. You only value that because you’ve been at the other end. And because you’ve been at the other end, you never want to go back there, so you work even harder… I say this often: The foundation stone of success is laid on the ground of failure.”

Abhishek recalled what Hrithik Roshan told him the same night that the lobby came to a standstill. Hrithik had experienced overnight stardom following the release of his debut film, and is still regarded as the last major movie star to be launched in the Hindi film industry. “He was there and he was so happy. He hugged me and he said something in my ear which just threw me off. But it’s kept me so aligned to what has happened. He said, ‘Till now it was nothing, your problems start now. Now you have something to lose’.”

In Khalid Mohamed’s book, To Be Or Not To B: Amitabh Bachchan, Jaya recalled the moments of sorrow that both her husband and son went through in their professional lives. She said about Amitabh, “I never took his flops seriously; I was convinced that they were a passing phase. He was learning and improving. He would not get depressed by his failures but yes, at times he would retort sharply, ‘Naturally no one wants me since I’m a flop actor.’ Now Abhishek talks like this all the time and again I am convinced that it is just a passing phase.” The book was released in 2002, two years after Abhishek made his acting debut. Some years ago, Abhishek had admitted that he nearly quit acting after the string of flops, but was talked down from the ledge by his father.