

“I don’t feel the pressure of saying something new every day. While he isn’t an ardent fan of social media, he says he uses it judiciously and to keep a tab on what “young people” are watching. Devgn is acutely aware of this and points out that the fear of becoming irrelevant is very real to him. While it's good to dip into nostalgia and reminisce, one can’t lose sight of the shifting present. Now, you’ve 200 pages of contracts and 20,000 clauses and whatnot.” Doesn’t that safeguard you in many ways? “Of course. “It was maybe on the last day or the final schedule when we’d sign agreements-that too because you had to file your IT returns. He remembers a time when film shoots would begin without contracts and agreements and lawyers. Even with Sanju and all, I’d still think a little not because of them but because of how corporate-controlled the industry has become.” You feel a little conscious about disturbing them. But with the newer actors, it’s very different. Actors from my time-Salman Khan, Shah Rukh Khan, Sanjay Dutt-are still like this. Earlier, you could just pop in on a friend’s set, hang out for an hour or so, and get back. “You’ve to think twice before walking up to anybody’s set anymore, even if you’re shooting next door. Years later, when the actor, now way past the brief bout of misfortune, signed Lever for another film-Rohit Shetty’s All The Best, which he was producing-he came aboard with one condition: He wouldn’t take the money. When the time came to pay him, Lever refused to take the money, knowing the losses that his friend had made.

“I didn’t buy a new phone for a whole year and kept using the one that was in tatters just to tide through.” Johny Lever was one of the actors in the film he played the protagonist’s friend, Jaddu. It was, in Devgn’s words, the lowest point of his career as he spent the next few months returning and paying people off and living in relative austerity. It was an expensive film and Devgn says that while it did decently at the box office, they still ended up incurring losses largely because of the film’s cost. In 2000, Devgn produced and acted in a film called Raju Chacha, which was directed by his brother, Anil Devgan. While they may have aggressively competed with one another, Devgn has, in many ways, complemented them-always being a companion rather than a threat. His stardom has stood adjacent to the three Khans’, never eating into their space. Without taking names, I’d say that there are some actors who are talented, good looking, but when you see them on screen, they just irritate you, you know? It’s an instinctive reaction.”ĭespite arriving at the same time as the three Khans and Akshay Kumar, Devgn managed to carve a niche for himself that has progressively grown, as he dabbled in everything from romantic dramas to slapstick comedy to action thrillers-like Bhola, for which he sits in the director’s chair once again.
