In the Hindi Actors Roundtable on
Galatta Plus
, the actor said that there was a lot of chatter and excitement about him joining the film industry. Not because of him, but because of the kid he was. But contrary to that, people were not interested in working with him. Abhishek thinks he met all the directors he could have met, and they all very respectfully declined, saying, ‘We don’t want the responsibility of watching you'.
Abhishek then recalled an incident in his debut movie.
He began creating a period film, then titled 'Samjhauta Express', with a friend and filmmaker
Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra
, who was having difficulty getting any actors for his directorial debut. Abhishek grew his moustache and beard for the film, but when he pitched it to
Amitabh Bachchan
for him to produce, he said the script was 'bakwas'.
Later, Amitabh took Abhishek to the Filmfare Awards, and filmmaker JP Dutta spotted him. He approached Abhishek a couple of days later for his next, on a Mughal descendant who was the son of Bahadur Shah Zafar. While that film wasn't set, JP eventually cast Abhishek in his 2000 cross-border romance 'Refugee', opposite newcomer
Kareena Kapoor
.
English (US) ·