Emraan Hashmi: It is a struggle to balance the audience

Emraan Hashmi (Picture courtesy/AFP)

Bollywood star Emraan Hashmi says he can never conform to set notions of how a Bollywood hero should be though he tries to strike a balance for his viewers. The actor said his audience is divided into two segments, one that wants him to experiment more and the others who love him in his comfort zone.

Hashmi, who has featured popular films like the "Murder" and "Jannat" franchise, "Once Upon a Time in Mumbai" and later appeared in edgy movies such as "Shanghai", and "Ghanchakkar", said it is a struggle to do the balancing act. "It is a struggle to balance the audience. They always want to see you in a particular thing and then when you step out of that, a lot of people get upset about it. This is very true to our audience, not the international audience," Emraan told PTI.

The actor said there are some "set notions" of what a leading man should or shouldn't do in India. "In the end of 'Ghanchakkar' when I am getting beaten up, the audience was angry, a lot of distributors said why are you doing this? I was being honest to the character. But this is how Indian films are. They want to see the hero do certain, stereotypical things. Be that hero who does that time and again, I find that exhausting. That's why, I took a departure," he added.

Hashmi said looking back at his career, he can see that he did a lot of films that he would not watch as a viewer. "My palette of films that I watched weren't remotely close to the ones I did. So identification with some films was difficult, but I took it upon myself that I have to be truthful to the material."

The 40-year-old actor said it was also hard to come out of his image. "Initially in your career, you are not in a place to choose films. The films choose you. If they are successful, it has to be done to death. That's how the trade functions, they see a safety net, a cash flow so they juice it out. Sometimes you play to that and then after a certain amount of success, you want to get out of that trap. But they don't want you to get out of the trap, they constantly want you to bring in the moolah with that," he said.

The actor will be next seen in Sanjay Gupta's "Mumbai Saga" and "Chehre", which also co-stars Amitabh Bachchan.

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