Shahid Kapoor says he hated when people called him ‘cute’: ‘Why would you say that to anybody?’

Shahid Kapoor was known as the 'cute boy-next-door' during his early years in Hindi cinema. But it was a term which he didn't like.

Shahid Kapoor was introduced as the boy-next-door in his first film. (Photo: Shahid Kapoor/Instagram)

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Shahid Kapoor made his debut with Ishq Vishk two decades ago. He instantly became the boy next door and was often called ‘cute’ by his fans. But it was a word that the actor ‘hated’. Recently, Shahid opened up about his reaction to those compliments.

In a chat with Pinkvilla, Shahid said that he found the term ‘very limiting’ and shared, “I used to hate it when people used to say ‘Oh, you are cute’. I used to hate it. Like why would you say that to anybody? I never liked that word. I have learnt to be graceful and accept when people throw it at you. I just felt like it was very limiting.”

For many of his earlier years, Shahid Kapoor was known for selecting boy-next-door roles, which changed with films like Kaminey. However, Shahid said that as he looks back, he finds his journey very ‘psychotic’. “It’s been pretty psychotic. What was I thinking with some of the choices? Kaminey followed by Dil Bole Hadippa. And Haider followed by R Rajkumar. I don’t know what was going on with me.”

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Shahid’s two-decade journey includes another debut, this time on OTT with Farzi. His last film Jersey did not perform as expected, as was the case with many Hindi film releases in the last couple of years. Speaking about the performance of the Hindi film industry, Shahid acknowledged that the fraternity needs to make better choices to keep the audience happy. “We’ve been disappointing them so I think the fault is in us and it’s not in the audience,” he said.

The actor added, “I think some of the choices that, let’s just say as a community, the film fraternity has made in the last 3-4 years have not been good so we all have to come together to make stronger, better, clearer choices with more awareness of where things are and how the audience is feeling and how to keep them happy and satisfied.”

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