Coming from a film family, as the nephew of veteran actor Dharmendra, Abhay Deol certainly has a unique perspective on Bollywood. He had earlier spoken about privilege and even gotten candid about how ‘Raanjhanaa’ glorified stalking.
In a recent interview, he opined that belonging to a film family doesn’t necessarily guarantee a place in Bollywood. Abhay muses that the industry operates like a clique and rewards ‘loyalty’.
“Look at the end of the day, we, as a culture, reward loyalty more than we reward innovation. We are just culturally built like that. So it doesn’t matter if you’re an insider or an outsider, if you show loyalty you can get very far,” Abhay said.
He maintained that he’s always tried to ‘step out of the mainstream’, but hasn’t made the effort to ‘build any bridges’. “It’s not that bad, it’s you as an individual if you choose to stay away from the crowd, then it doesn’t matter if you’re from the inside, you will be excluded from the crowd,” he continues.
Sharing further details of how Bollywood operates in his view, Abhay explained,
“But if you want to be in the crowd, I mean Bollywood is very cliquish, we all know that. So you can pick a clique and if someone takes a fancy to you and thinks, ‘okay I can do something with this person,’ then it doesn’t matter if you’re from a film family or not, you’ll get taken in,” he added.
What do you think of his revelations?