“The Audience Decides…” Aditya Chopra On Nepotism

“I grew up with films being made around me”- Aamir Khan

“I belong to a film family. We’re in the fourth generation of actors”- Rishi Kapoor

“I have flirted around the film set while growing up”- Ranbir Kapoor

“My mother was in movies in the ‘60s and ‘70s”- Saif Ali Khan

“I grew up on film sets”- Abhishek Bachchan

“I was a filmmaker’s son and I thought, That’s what I have to do.”- Hrithik Roshan

NEPOTISM is a word/ phrase that has gained a lot of popularity in the recent past. The dreaded N-word made us believe that the Indian film industry is allergic to the outsiders as it provides an easy launchpad for the nepo-babies.

Well ending the nepotism debate once and for all, director/producer Aditya Chopra took a jibe at his brother Uday Chopra and said we were unable to make him a star.

He said, “This nepotism debate which has really flared up in the past few years is unfortunate. I think one of the things that people tend to ignore is that every person comes from a certain privileged background but not everyone is successful.”

He further added, “I can just articulate just by mentioning my own family. My brother is an actor, and he’s not a very successful actor. Now, here is the son of one of the biggest filmmakers, he’s a brother of a very big filmmaker. A company like YRF has probably launched the most newcomers, and we could not make him a star. Why could we not do it on our own? Because the bottom line is, only an audience will decide, “I like this person.” No one else can decide”

For the uninitiated, Yash Chopra’s younger son, Uday Chopra made his acting debut in the Amitabh Bachchan, Shah Rukh Khan and Aishwarya Rai Bachchan starrer film ‘Mohabbatein’, helmed by Aditya Chopra.

Uday Chopra also opened up about how he got to play the role of ‘Vicky’ in the film and said, “The cool thing about my family was that even though I said I want to act, it wasn’t like “Oh, you’re gonna get a movie”. My brother was like, “Oka, fine, but first you gotta test. I wanna see if you’re really good in front of the camera, because if you are not then there’s no point.”

The actor then appeared in ‘Dhoom’ along with Abhishek Bachchan and John Abraham where he headlined the role of ‘Tapori Ali’.