After actors Kalki Koechlin and Shreyas Talpade talked about being happy as outsiders in the film industry, Hathoda Tyagi aka Abhishek Banerjee has expressed similar sentiments saying that star kids face a LOT of pressure in Bollywood. Hindustan Times quoted him explaining,
“It is definitely a drawback but it is also a blessing. There is no pressure, my family name is not attached to me. Even the smallest of success becomes glory for me. Doing ‘Stree’ and ‘Dream Girl’, they were glory moments for my family. Here, even if the son has a small achievement, the family is happy. But if I was a star kid, the pressure would be 200%. I had to do good and would have to be in successful films, only then my family name would shine and they will say ‘beta achcha kar raha hai’.”
He added, “If someone is new in the industry, they need to start thinking. They need to be more innovative and more hardworking. If the family is not in the business, any business, one has to make his way through. It’s about commerce when you are putting some amount of money and you need to be sure that you will get some kind of returns. The audience likes to see someone whom they are familiar with. The familiarity quotient is huge which makes them get the job.”
He concluded by saying, “It is you who make your name, it is not your money or your family. No matter whose child you are, you will have to work for yourself. If someone will inherit his father’s shop or follow their footsteps in the army, it will happen. You don’t need to have a problem with that, we need to work hard towards it so that we can also find our place in the industry. They are more than ready to accept us.”
This is exactly why discourse is important, we get to see all sides of the issue – the good, the bad, and the ugly.