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Ashish Vidyarthi won a National Award quite early in his career, much like Mithun Chakraborty but at some point in both their lives, they found themselves working in films, which Ashish described as “B-grade.” In a recent interview, Ashish shared that he made this decision because he was desperate for money, and could not afford to say no.
Speaking with Siddharth Kannan on his YouTube channel, Ashish revealed, “I did a lot of films just for the sake of money. I had extremely old parents. When I came to Bombay, I was determined to give a good lifestyle to my parents. I was a passionate actor, but I couldn’t wait for amazing roles to come to me because I had responsibilities.” He continued, “I have done a lot of films for money. It was a bad time when they used to make films with Mithun Da in Ooty. I was in many of those films. It was a very painful time for me. I knew I was taking up these roles only to run my house. I knew I didn’t want to see myself like this on those sets. People would get disappointed in me, saying, ‘You can do better.’ I would just say, ‘Yeah,’ and continue doing those films.”
Explaining his choices, Ashish said, “I was living in a rented house. I had to take care of my parents. At that stage in my life, I thought, ‘Boss, I have to take some action.’ The situation was such that I couldn’t say no to anyone. They would be like, ‘Kyu nahi karega be?’ Even some of the great directors said this to me. When I said no to them, I had to figure out another way to earn my bread—and that’s when I turned to the South.”
But things didn’t fall into place immediately. For more than two months, he struggled without work. Then came a call from veteran filmmaker T Rama Rao. Ashish recalled, “I took a flight, went there, spoke to a lot of people, but didn’t get any work for two months until I received a call from T Rama Rao. When I met him, he told me, ‘Ashish, I don’t want you, but my mad director wants you. You have to do the film. I won’t pay you anything.’ I accepted it. Then he said he was joking.”
After his run as a leading man, Mithun Chakraborty’s career began to decline. The actor started doing low-budget action films in Ooty—more than a hundred of them. This phase led to the media labelling him a “B-grade” actor.
Speaking to YouTube channel Who’s On Air?, Mithun’s son Namashi Chakraborty defended his father’s choices: “There was a time, in the mid-90s, when my father’s career was declining as a lead. So, he started doing low-budget action films in Ooty. He made about 100 of them in Ooty, and the media termed him a B-grade actor. They looked down on his films. But the fact that he was able to do 100 films living in Ooty was unheard of. He made his own industry, but the media never supported that—they have their favourites.”
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