Kunal Kemmu on Why He Deserves ‘Better Chances’, Audience Can’t Be Solely Blamed for Star System And More

With the raging debate on nepotism and insider versus outsider in Bollywood, the audience is often blamed for the so-called theatrical star system, which is believed to give certain importance to some actors over others.

However, Kemmu says, “You can’t solely blame the audience for this.”

“The audiences do give you love and that’s what makes you a star but it is a long process. Every superstar of this country worked very hard for a very long time to be in that position. Unfortunately in the past few years, superstardom has become a matter of one film. If your one film works, your Instagram followers will increase, you will get magazine covers, you will host the award functions. You become the superstar in six months, whereas all the superstars that I have loved were built over a lot of groundwork of films– be it Akshay Kumar, Aamir Khan, Shah Rukh Khan, or for that matter, Amitabh Bachchan. So, the whole definition of stardom or superstardom has changed,” he adds.

“Having said that, the audiences are the end result. They are the ones who buy tickets so they are responsible but they are not completely responsible because sometimes they are not aware of some things. Because sometimes the PR machinery or the clout of the producer or director goes into building the perception of a film. All of this also plays a major part to make or break the perception of a film. There’s a lot of marketing and PR that also goes behind it,” Kemmu concludes.