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Subhash Ghai blames actors for Bollywood’s star crisis, says no superstars in 10-15 years except Ranbir Kapoor: ‘Salman, SRK are stars as…’

Subhash Ghai pointed out that instead of focusing on their craft, actors today are more concerned with making money, building their brand, and other financial factors. He gave examples of Salman Khan and Shah Rukh and explained how they retained their stardom.

By: Entertainment Desk
Chennai | March 10, 2025 03:03 PM IST

3 min read

Subhash Ghai is known for making movies like Ram Lakhan, Khalnayak, Pardes and Taal. (Image: Ghai/Instagram)

The dearth of superstars in the Hindi film industry in the current generation is evident to both audiences and filmmakers. In a recent interaction, prolific filmmaker Subhash Ghai spoke about this issue and explained how excessive analysis and the growing emphasis on the business aspect of filmmaking have brainwashed actors. He pointed out that instead of focusing on their craft, actors today are more concerned with making money, building their brand, and other financial factors.

Speaking on the YouTube channel Game Changers, Ghai explained that in the past, all actors—regardless of their star power—were addressed by their character’s name on set. The filmmaker emphasized how important this was for performances. He shared, “We never used to call actors by their name on the set. We would call them by their character’s name. We would call Anil Kapoor ‘Lakhan’ and Jackie Shroff ‘Ram’ on the sets of Ram Lakhan. We do this because when they shoot for the film for a year or 9 months, they get into that character, and the whole film’s team knows them by their character’s name. Characters are the most important thing in making a good story because they are telling the story.”

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Ghai also pointed out how today’s actors are more focused on brand-building, which, in his opinion, is affecting their performances. “I am very particular about actors, and these days actors think of themselves as a brand. The actor would be surrounded by talent managers who would read the script. How will you understand how the character will look on the screen by reading the script? They should ask the actors to pick a scene and act and judge whether they can do it or not.”

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He further stated that the presence of talent managers has worsened the situation. “The actors make their talent managers sit in these meetings, and it is because those talent managers will bring in money, deciding what all brands fit into that project. The managers also decide what kind of an image the actor will have in the project. Just to judge that, they are in the meeting. This practice wasn’t there earlier, and they were also superstars. They just had secretaries,” he said.

Ghai cited examples of Shah Rukh Khan, Salman Khan, and other actors who never engaged in such practices and are now among the last remaining superstars. He said, “That’s why the 80s actors are still superstars like Salman Khan, Shah Rukh Khan, Akshay Kumar, Aamir Khan, and others. It is because they have come from that culture. In 10 years, who all became stars? No one except Ranbir Kapoor.”

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