Emraan Hashmi says Bollywood suffering from ‘wild perception’ game, takes dig at those who criticise it: ‘They say it’s full of drugs, parties…’

“There’s a perception, especially in the last three years, which has become very skewed towards an overtly negative perception. That everything that’s wrong (in the society), happens in Bollywood. Drugs, wild parties, promiscuity and everything. I don’t know where did that suddenly come about in the last three years, but it amped up to another level,” Emraan tells Indianexpress.com.

The actor says every film industry has a “few bad apples” which bring it a bad name but one will “never hear” that about other industries. “We (Bollywood) have become more of a soft target. Wild perceptions are being put out there and even more so now on social media. Thats far from true. People just like to bash this industry.”

Emraan says the negativity is true even for the nepotism debate, which rings hollow now in the face of mindless trolling and people with agenda to dent the image of the industry.

“There are enough outsiders who have are a success story than the ‘nepo kids’. It’s an industry where both these worlds coexist. It’s a very secular industry, where you have people from all walks of life, of all castes, ideologies, languages. They all come together for the sole purpose to entertain the audience, which is beautiful.

“But sometimes people get the platform to talk about it and the spotlight on them gives them this bit of fame and that’s why they like to do it. There’s no other industry where they’ll critique it and get that level of fame for themselves. So, this industry is a soft target that way,” Emraan adds.

Showtime is created and written by Sumit Roy with Mihir Desai attached as a showrunner. The Disney Plus Hotstar series, directed by Mihir Desai and Archit Kumar and backed by Karan Johar, also stars Rajeev Khandelwal, Mouni Roy, Naseeruddin Shah, Mahima Makwana and Shriya Saran in key roles. It’ll premiere on March 8.