Anurag Kashyap says India doesn’t need masked superheroes, we have Shah Rukh Khan, Salman Khan: ‘We have low self esteem…’

He added, “They have Iron Man and other superheroes; we have Shah Rukh Khan and Salman Khan as our superheroes. We don’t need Iron Man and Hulk. We have Sunny Deol—what is Hulk in front of him? This is in all of us; we need heroes to feel better about ourselves. We fantasise about this. An average Indian dreams about doing something heroic.”

In an earlier interview, Anurag explained why he never attempted to make films with a big star like Shah Rukh or Salman Khan. “Though I came here to make films, there was a time when I succumbed to it (the habit of chasing stars). Everybody was telling me, ‘Without stars you are doing this… imagine what you will do with stars’. That’s when the tide turns the other way and the slide starts,” he said during a chat with Puja Talwar. He also pointed out that fans in India are fanatical. “There’s no such practice in other countries. So, there you have more freedom and actors also play around. We are driven by hero-worshipping here.”

Anurag’s recent films—Kennedy and Almost Pyaar with DJ Mohabbat—didn’t perform well at the box office. Despite these setbacks, he remains one of the most influential filmmakers. He also played a significant role in Nawazuddin Siddiqui’s Haddi and had a cameo appearance in Vijay’s Leo.