After completing a decade in Bollywood, actor Shahid Kapoor is happy with the way his career has shaped up but regrets not doing enough films in the past 10 years. The 32-year-old actor made his acting debut in 2003 with college drama “Ishq Vishk” and has so far starred in just 20 films. Kapoor feels he should have presented himself more often on the big screen to the audience, which in turn would have catapulted him to greater success. “The one mistake I made was that I did very little work. I think that is not good. As an actor, you need to go out there, show yourself to the audience twice or thrice a year, at least at this stage of my career.

 

 

“I am not 45. I am not at that stage where people have seen 20 years of my work. So I feel it is important to keep presenting yourself to the audience. There will be times they will like you; there will be times they will not like the film. I have learned over 10 years that films will come and go, but people must like you. And therefore your performances must be consistent,” said Kapoor. Kapoor’s career so far has been defined by a collection of soaring highs and dispiriting lows. He tasted success with his debut movie but could not follow it up with his subsequent films until “Vivah” in 2006. His other successful outings have been Imtiaz Ali’s “Jab We Met” in 2007 and Vishal Bharadwaj’s 2009 film “Kaminey,” which is arguably Kapoor’s best performance till date.

 

“I have seen some very successful periods and some very unsuccessful periods. But I think it is most important to recognize that you need to work with the right people. You have to keep working without changing who you are and how you are,” Kapoor said. The actor, who is the son of Bollywood veteran Pankaj Kapur, says because of the uncertainty in his profession, it gets difficult to take the right decision at times. “As it is such an unpredictable field, it is all about timing. You always take decisions which can go either way. You can never know that a film will surely do well. So sometimes when the time is good, the decisions turn out to be great. But when you are going through a bad phase, it goes against you,” Kapoor said. The actor, who was last seen on the big screen in 2012 film “Teri Meri Kahaani,” is gearing up for the release of “Phata Poster Nikla Hero” Sept. 20.

 

The action comedy has been directed by Rajkumar Santoshi, who has earlier tickled the audience’s funny bone with “Andaz Apna Apna” in 1994 and Ranbir Kapoor-starrer “Ajab Prem Ki Ghazab Kahani.” Kapoor plays a character called Vishwas Rao, an aspiring actor mistaken as a super cop. “It is the first time I am doing a comic character of this kind and it is a very new genre for me. I have never really done a masala action comedy in my career, or played a character which makes the hero-like entry and delivers very filmy dialogues. So I was very keen to know how it would feel,” he said. The actor is all praise for his director, who he thinks has brought out the best of his comic side in the film.

 

“When I heard the script, I found it extremely entertaining. Raj-ji acted out every character from the film during the narration. I knew that I was with a director who is very clear about what he wants from me as an actor. He said this is the character to entertain the audience, so that they enjoy themselves with all the buffoonery that he does,” Kapoor said. The actor, who is currently shooting Prabhu Deva’s “Rambo Rajkumar” opposite Bollywood actress Sonakshi Sinha, is reuniting with Bharadwaj again for an adaptation of William Shakespeare’s popular tragedy “Hamlet.”

 

The film, titled “Haider,” will be Bharadwaj’s final film in the Shakespeare trilogy after he successfully adapted “Macbeth” to “Maqbool” and “Othello” to “Omkara".“I feel fortunate that he has offered me another film and that we will be working together again. He is a phenomenal director. He has given me the best role of my life. The role in ‘Haider’ will be very challenging. Some very fine actors have played Hamlet in the past. “It is a complex role and I am happy that I am doing a dark, edgy, performance-oriented film after ‘Phata Poster...’ and ‘Rambo Rajkumar.’ These two are meant to entertain the audience, and then I get to challenge myself as an actor in Vishal sir’s film,” Kapoor said.