After Anurag Kashyap’s ‘money-minded’ comment, Vicky Kaushal says he has worked hard for fame, success: ‘Either nobody cares about you, or…’

He continued, “Whenever you go into a film, you want every film to break records. You want every film to create a record that nobody has seen before. You’re walking into a film wanting it to become the talk of the town, and something that everyone wants to see in the theatre. What happens is the film’s destiny, and the quality of work you’ve been able to execute. Today, I’m not thinking that ‘this film will make me a this-many-crore-actor and this won’t’.”

Also read – Vicky Kaushal would dance for everybody’s entertainment on set, now he gets paid for it: Anurag Kashyap says actor ‘hasn’t changed’

Vicky said that he isn’t in it for the ‘small wins’, such as delivering a major hit or being called ‘the actor of the year’. “I’m here to build a legacy, and a legacy can’t just be built on crores. It has to be built on quality and box office both. It’s about looking back at a basket of films to be proud of, and people can be proud of,” he said, adding that he wants to be loved and adored by fans. “I don’t think I’ve become this big or that big, I have to become much bigger. When I wanted to be an actor, I dreamt of being like all the big superstars that this country has produced; Dilip Kumar, Amitabh Bachchan, Shah Rukh Khan, Govinda… I don’t want to be in the middle ground,” he said.

Vicky said that there are two kinds of actors: “nobody cares about you,” and, “everybody cares about every aspect of your life.” Vicky said that he has chosen the second path for himself. “Once I have made that choice, there is nothing I want to complain about that comes with fame. I love it, I want more of it, and I have worked very hard for this love, and this love will never be a cause of worry or tension. I go to sleep with a lot of gratitude,” he said.

Vicky delivered the biggest hit of his career, Chhaava, earlier this year. The movie made over Rs 800 crore at the worldwide box office. In an interview with The Lallantop, Anurag Kashyap was asked what he thought about the film, and about Vicky’s performance in it, and he said, “I don’t have much interaction with him much these days. I don’t judge him, because every person has their own reasons… I don’t repeat myself. What I wanted to say, I said.” Vicky got his start in the industry thanks to Anurag, with whom he worked as an assistant on Gangs of Wasseypur, and as an actor on Raman Raghav 2.0, Manmarziyaan, and Almost Pyaar with DJ Mohabbat.

In the Lallantop interview, Anurag continued, “This is why I left Mumbai. Every person has their own ambitions, and it is up to them on how they choose to achieve them. It’s not my responsibility. It took me a while to detach myself. But the atmosphere in Bollywood has become more money-minded. People are looking at ‘crores’ in their decision-making. This is what I ran away from. I don’t want to return to that world.”

In an interview with Zoom a couple of years before that, Anurag said that Vicky did Almost Pyaar with DJ Mohabbat for free, and that he feels guilty about asking his star friends to take pay cuts for his films. “It’s a two-way thing. If I’m making a low-budget film, Vicky will come and do it for free, which is a burden for me. Of course, I feel guilty. Vicky did Almost Pyaar for me. He came, he gave me his dates, he charged me nothing,” he said.