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Arjun Kapoor made a successful comeback with the role of Danger Lanka in Rohit Shetty’s cop drama Singham Again. It is the actor’s first successful film in about eight years. This success comes after an extended dark phase in his life, where he was driven to the point of abandoning his love for cinema. Arjun admitted that he grew ‘bitter’ while watching the films of his contemporaries, and would often wonder, “Why can’t I get these offers?” He said that he stopped watching films after a point in 2022.
In an interview with Pinkvilla, Arjun shared the reason why he lost interest in something that he considered his passion. He said, “It is a very continuous process. It is not like one day I randomly got up and felt like, ‘Oh, I am not enjoying watching films.’ What was happening is that I used to watch something for five-ten minutes and suddenly I used to have the thoughts that, ‘When will I get to do such work?’ You have to understand, when you have been a main lead, doing mainstream work, you have been used to putting films together when you say yes, you are able to put it all together.”
He added, “The industry also is going through a time where it is not easy to make films happen. At the same time, you are seeing amazing work and I have always been somebody who was very gracious about enjoying other people’s work and complimenting them. It wasn’t like I had become bitter, but I was not able to see the good in anybody’s performance. I was only trying to see, ‘Why can’t I do that? Why am I not getting a chance to do that?’ So I started becoming bitter about the fact that I am not getting an opportunity.”
The actor said that he wasn’t making comparisons, but it became difficult for him to appreciate films. He said, “Not like I was feeling or saying, ‘I can do better than Vijay Varma’. I am not interested in such comparison. My point is ‘Why can’t I do what Jaideep (Ahlwat) is doing? Why am I not getting the opportunity that Vijay has got right now in this film.’ It became very difficult to process a film as a viewing experience. My personal baggage started coming in the way. And I am somebody who watches a film every night before going to bed, maybe two.”
Arjun then revealed, “It happened in the latter half of 2022, where I really just switched off from watching any kind of material and enjoying it. I started to watch YouTube shorts. I had started to doom-scrolling on Instagram. I used to literally lie down in bed and just keep scrolling and pass out.” He added, “I used to be the person who used to watch three films back-to-back during DVD days. So, to go from that to not feeling like even pressing play, I think it was more to do with the fact that I felt paralysed about my thinking. I couldn’t overcome the negative thoughts. I was overthinking a lot, so I was not able to live and enjoy.”
In the same interview, Arjun Kapoor also opened up about not being active in cinema during that phase and rejecting several projects. He said, “I think after 12 years, you have earned that much that you can afford to say no if you are not feeling comfortable or confident about it. I definitely wanted to work but I didn’t want to make mistakes by just being desperate to keep myself busy. I have done that in the past when I was trying to just sign films to keep myself busy.”
He added, “It is tough to say no because you do want to be on a set, you want to be engaged, you don’t want to be sitting at home and overthinking anyways when you are going through a phase where you are trying to not let your mind affect you. But, I connect this to a very important phase in my life where I started doing therapy. And, somewhere I realised that I need to love myself again. I need to take care of myself again and going outward sometimes is not the answer. You need to go inwards for that. Sometimes you go on a film set or you are roaming around, you are doing things, you are looking for external validation. I think, I needed to go into myself. I needed to really understand why I have so many things that I am not dealt with whether it is loss, rejection, or not wanting to deal with things.”
He shared, “Me saying no to whatever I did at that point, I wouldn’t have been able to do justice to any of it any which ways. It was good that I didn’t take up those projects. I needed to be in a better position to understand what inspires me today to say yes to a film. I was handicapped by my own personal chaos. I thought I would rather deal with my problems than do a film to escape it. I wouldn’t have been the actor they expected me to be. I was dealing with too much.”
After therapy, Arjun finally regained his love for cinema when he was recently in Germany, and pulled himself to watch a film alone after several years. The actor also credits Singham Again to pulling him out from his dark phase.
He said, “I feel like home on film sets. I was not getting work and Rohit sir gave me this opportunity. For me to deal with personally whatever I was going through, this phase of life where I was a bit deflated, defeated or confused, whatever you want to call it. For me, going on a film set was cathartic and therapeutic. I was able to actually deal with life better because I really love working. I used to just go and embrace the challenge of being able to play this character and have a lot of fun with it. And, maybe use that to come out of whatever slump I was going through in my personal space, which did help, to be honest.”
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