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Filmmaker Dibakar Banerjee has opened up about how Indian actors are ‘still framed actors’ and how he finds ‘boredom’ in that. When he was asked if he would be open to collaborate with Shah Rukh Khan, the director said that it would be unlikely as the star would not be interested in doing a three-month workshop with him. He also discussed the term ‘100 crore club’ and it’s evolution.
On the podcast Unfiltered with Samdish, Dibakar talked about the ‘style of the star system’ and said, “Hypothetically I will tell Shah Rukh that, ‘Shah Rukh, we have to do a workshop of 3 months. He will say ‘I will do it, I’ll just come.’ And he will go (Shah Rukh), and will not come back. What does star system mean is that I am a star, and I have a scene with you. I am doing it, I am doing the scene with you. But I know that ‘150 crores’ is sitting here’. The star has this awareness, totally, in every scene. So, I mean you can see all the stars do this. Now I feel a little boredom in that.”
When asked if Ranbir Kapoor and Ranveer Singh follow the “star system”, the director said, “Totally.” He also mentioned his willingness to work with Rajkummar Rao, praising him as a talented actor. The two have previously worked together in Love Sex Aur Dhokha. The director clarified that when he referred to stars like Shah Rukh, he wasn’t talking about their stardom level but rather about people with a mindset or cultural connection directly with the audience, regardless of the film itself.
Dibakar also explained how the rise of ‘100 crore club’ hampered independent cinema that was starting to gain a following among the audience. He said, “Around 2010, when we were working on LSD, at that time I heard the name of the 100 crore club for the first time. And it’s quite an interesting piece of cinema history, that 100 crore club and telling the audience that, ‘this film has made 100 crore, therefore you should watch this film started from somewhere around there. I remember telling Anurag at that point that something is happening and it seems that it is being told that don’t watch indie films because they make less money and watch these films because they make money.”
He said that previously, audiences weren’t informed about a film’s financial success to encourage them to watch it, but that trend changed after this marketing gimmick came into play. When asked if this shift was a response to him, Dibakar said, “I think so. It’s how the market behaves; if such films come out, the star system might break.”
The director also drew a comparison to the 90s music scene when indie music thrived, but by 2004-05, Bollywood brought the focus back to mainstream music. Dibakar stressed the need to be aware of this system and how the market operates, especially in a star-centric industry.
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