Not Just Bollywood| Radhika Apte on Vikram Vedha: ‘After hundreds of rejection I used to get a project’

In an EXCLUSIVE interview with Firstpost, actor Radhika Apte says that her journey has not been smooth at all. In fact, it’s been quite tough for her. She had to constantly fight for what she wanted to do and most of the time she landed up not getting what she wanted to do. From the outside it looks like a certain actor is doing well. She mentioned that what people fail to notice is that after hundreds of rejection you get one project. She has now made a conscious effort to reduce her work and concentrate on her health and family life. She believes that the best thing about working in the west is that people paid on time and there is much more equality as compared to Bollywood. Excerpts from the interview: You have just wrapped up your shoot with Vikram Vedha, how was the experience like working with Hrithik Roshan and Saif Ali Khan? To be honest with you, there was no prep. It’s not a very complicated role. But it has many interesting situations in the film. It is a very interesting character and you will get to see a lot of interesting conflicts. But the role didn’t need any specific research or rehearsals. I had seen the original and we did rehearse on set. I know Saif well enough since we have done a couple of projects together and most of my scenes are with him. I have done one small scene with Hrithik. I had never met Hrithik before, but he made me feel extremely comfortable to work with and we got down to work really quickly. The film is not just an action thriller, but talks about something philosophical. On choosing different role. I definitely make a choice from what is been offered to me. Then comes making the choice of whether I like the script, co-actors and directors and whether they are paying you well or not. And another thing is that whether the project being offered to you is going to be great for your personal growth. But that doesn’t always happen. So you do things for different reasons. Sometime you need the films because of the content and sometimes you really need money, commercial viability and most of the time it is a mixture of all these things. Your journey in the entertainment industry. It’s not been smooth at all. I would say, it’s been quite tough. It’s been really hard to constantly fight for what you want and most of the times you don’t really get what you want. From the outside it looks like a certain actor is doing well. What people fail to notice is that after hundreds of rejection you get one project. And as an actor you wish to believe that you will get projects you want after working for a certain number of years. But that actually doesn’t happen either. There are many things that you are battling at the same time. Having said that I have been very lucky as well. So it’s not been easy, but have been fortunate. I have had those chances which many people don’t get. I have done pretty well for myself and have worked with some directors and actors whom I admire. Most importantly, I love performing and I have been given opportunities to do so. You live in London and you do so many projects in India, how do you manage to do that? I literally do Bombay-London, like one would do Poona- Bombay. Last month I was in Bombay for few day and again I am here. Earlier it used to be the other way round. I used to live longer in India and lesser number of days in London. Now I have reduced my number of work very consciously. I travel so much that I have stopped checking in since the last eight years. So I go with my hand bag, my laptop and my phone.  You have reduced your work. What is the reason behind it?  I want to choose work and projects that I want to do. And do work that makes me feel happy and only those projects that interest me. So, I have been telling ‘no’ to a lot of work in the last two years. I also want a balance between my private life and work life. I used to work 365 days a week. I used to get like a half a day off in may be six to seven months. I used to literally go from the airport to work. Till COVID happened I literally worked like a dog. But now it was a conscious decision to give priority to my health and personal life. I am studying writing too to see if there is anything else in the making which I can be good at. So, this was a way of checking if I can do something else. But I want to choose work wisely and not just keep saying ‘yes’ to everything.  OTT as a game changer. A lot of good actors are getting work and doing prominent roles. This was not the case before. A lot of scripts are being written keeping women in the lead. It’s a great time for artists. On working both in the west and in Indian cinema I would say that I haven’t worked much in the west as compared to India. But from the few projects that I have done there, I would say that the crew was smaller which was a really good thing and all the HODs were very well aware of the script which I think was very necessary and people were on time and most importantly people paid on time and there was much more equality in terms of that. Read all the Latest News, Trending News, Cricket News, Bollywood News, India News and Entertainment News here. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.