For a person belonging to a film family, it might be a cakewalk to get the lead role in a movie. But this was not the case with Arjun Kapoor. Arjun, the son of popular film producer Boney Kapoor, being an exception got rejected by producer Aditya Chopra as the latter thought he would not be suitable to play a lead role.
Today, when Arjun looks back at that time, he is immensely proud of having made it in the industry by himself. In a recent interaction, the Gunday actor recalled how after auditioning rigorously, he landed his first role.“Aditya Chopra saw my photos first and said yeh toh actor nahi ban sakta, isko hum supporting… (he can’t be an actor, we can maybe cast him as supporting…) he can’t be the main lead. He was not very impressed with my images,” he said.
Arjun then added that even after growing up in the industry, he had never met Aditya or the late Yash Chopra in person. “I had met a lot of people because I have grown up in the industry, I will not lie, I had never met Adi sir,” he quoted. The actor further recounted that later Aditya Chopra got impressed by his screen presence and that’s when he decided to launch Arjun. “He said ‘acha isme kuch colour hai’. He can do other stuff also, he is not one-dimensional and that’s how I got my first film,” Arjun said.
Arjun, who got his first break as a lead with Habib Faisal’s Ishaqzaade alongside Parineeti Chopra ended the chat by stating, “I met him and that felt like okay this is something I have done on my own. Ek legacy hai meri family ki (My family has a legacy) but on my own, I will be making my debut so I think voh mera jo sapna tha (that was my dream) to make it on my own started from there, with the help of the fact that I am born here, not denying it, but then I tried to work in the most honest and sincere way.”
For the unknown, Arjun lost a huge amount of weight before his Bollywood debut. He has successfully completed a decade in the film industry recently. His upcoming films include Ek Villain Returns, The Ladykiller, and Kuttey.