MUMBAI: Vivek Oberoi says the kind of lobbying and constant disempowerment he faced in his career is a stuff for a tell-all biography, where people have written him off time and again, but he has survived them all.
The actor said he is a survivor by nature and this positive mentality has kept him going all these years.
“I’ve been that guy who probably has the world record for the most amount of obituaries written for his career. ‘He is done, he is finished, after this it’s all over.’ I just keep laughing at it because I’m a survivor by nature.
“I’ve had to face a lot of disempowerment, lobbies, and lots of crazy stuff. Maybe one day, I’ll write a tell-all biography!” Vivek said.
The actor in his career of more than 15 years has realised that he can’t give the power to anyone to neither write him off nor put him on a pedestal.
“I had to claw-back a lot and fight for my power. That’s why today I don’t give my power to anyone else to turn my destiny. I don’t expect that because a show is successful, it’s all me. It isn’t, it’s a collaborative effort. If it fails and you write yourself off, who’s going to believe in you, if you don’t?”
Vivek said he has built a career on “getting advices and shutting them down”, right from his debut “Company” to his latest, Amazon Prime Video’s “Inside Edge”.
“People thought my father would produce a film for me which would act like a show-reel of how his son dances, wears designer clothes, romances. I remember one of those scripts being written for me and I opted out respectfully. It was an Abbas-Mustan film which my father was producing.
“I got myself into ‘Company’ after a lot of struggle. When the film became a hit, people said stick to action but I did ‘Saathiya’. People said, now stick to romance but I did a ‘Masti’. I agreed to play a supervillain in ‘Krrish’ and people said ‘you are mad. Hrithik is so contemporary, why would you do it.’ But I love being the disruptor,” he added.
Vivek, 43, is now looking to empower every storyteller who he feels need backing. One such, was Karan Anshuman, the creator of “Inside Edge”.
“With whatever power I had, I decided I’m going to empower and enable. Whether it was Karan Anshuman, who people said was coming from a flop film, so be careful, but I believed in the guy. It gives me a kick, to be on the other end of things. I went through this, so I’m going to make sure others don’t,” he added.
“Inside Edge” is set in the landscape of sports and deals with power, money, fame and the mind games.
It stars Richa Chadha, Vivek Oberoi, Sayani Gupta, Angad Bedi, Sapna Pabbi among others. The second season of the show will debut on December 6. (agencies)
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