Anurag Kashyap: Bollywood doesn’t have the courage to make Rifle Club, they are obsessed with box-office crores

Actor-director Anurag Kashyap talks about why he is now cut off from Bollywood and is happier working in the South film industries

Anurag Kashyap in a still from Rifle Club

“In Bollywood, they look at me like I am the enemy of the state,” said Anurag Kashyap, in a recent interview, while highlighting the differences between the South and the Hindi film industries and why he now feels more at home at the former.

Anurag, who made his Malayalam acting debut with Aashiq Abu’s Rifle Club recently talked about playing the antagonist in the film and how working in the film also helped him enjoy the whole filmmaking process.

Anurag Kashyap: Bollywood is obsessed with box-office crores

In an interview with Gulf News, the Gangs of Wasseypur director said, “Hindi doesn’t have the courage to do a movie like this. (Bollywood) is about making Rs 500-600 crores; they are obsessed with box office crores. It’s destroying cinema and everything is becoming a formula,” said the filmmaker.

Also read: Anurag Kashyap on Aditya Chopra’s approach to filmmaking at YRF: ‘You’re digging your own grave’

When asked why he himself can’t drive the change, the filmmaker said that it’s becoming increasingly tougher for him to sell a movie, if it didn’t have a reference point. “They will just tell me, ‘I don’t know if this will work or not, because there’s no reference for it’. I can only sell a film saying that it’s like that blockbuster,” explained the filmmaker.

While Anurag played the role of a Mangalore-based arms dealer in the Malayalam thriller, he had also won critical acclaim for his portrayal as the villain in Vijay Sethupathi’s Tamil superhit Maharaja earlier this year.

Anurag Kashyap on why he is cut off from Bollywood now

The director said that he gets so much “love and respect from the audience, filmmakers and filmmaking community” of the South states. “In Bollywood, they look at me like I am the enemy of the state. I am participating more in South than in Hindi, and I am happier. I am so cut off from the Hindi film industry right now. I have found my tribe here. The people are real,” he added.

The actor-director, who is also collaborating with Malayalam actor Indrajith Sukumaran for a project, also explained that there’s no star system in the South and this has helped in making better films.

“In Bollywood, there’s a series of vanity vans. Everyone is isolated, with their entourage. The magic that happens in Rifle Club is because the actors were together all the time, even when they were not giving a shot,” he said. “In the Hindi film industry, after the shot is over, they go into their own space; they are busy with their social media, meetings. They are not into the film. They have no chemistry with each other. We have to then create chemistry.”

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