'I wasn't pushing myself': Abhishek Bachchan on fame and his return to Bollywood

Originally published on September 18, 2018

When it comes to Bollywood, the name Abhishek Bachchan​ is pure royalty. He's one of the biggest movie stars in the world, the son of two Indian film legends, Amitabh Bachchan and Jaya Bachchan, and the husband of actor and former Miss World, Aishwarya Rai Bachchan.

To put his fame in perspective, Bachchan​ made 60 movies between 2000 and 2015, and at his peak, he was making seven movies a year. So it came as a huge shock when the leading man decided to step away from his movie career at the height of his popularity.

"I just reached a crossroad where I felt it was all coming a bit too easily for me," Bachchan told q's Tom Power during the Toronto International Film Festival. "I think when you are doing a lot of work, all the films are doing really well, and you're making great money — it almost becomes mechanical. It's very easy to fall into the trap of a comfort zone. … Somewhere inside I just felt I wasn't challenging myself, I wasn't pushing myself, so I just took a break."

Bachchan found the challenge he was looking for in the film Husband Material (or Manmarziyaan), which just screened at TIFF, concluding his two-year hiatus from the big screen. 

The movie is a rom-com with a gritty edge. It's about a love triangle set in Northern India, with a free-spirited female love interest at its centre.

Bachchan said he was persuaded to join the film when director Anurag Kashyap — who's known for films that generally depict the dark underbelly of society — approached him with a love story. "I found that very interesting. I thought it was a good marriage of two very conflicting styles ... and I knew that would be challenging," he says.

Bachchan told Power that he and his movie star wife enjoy travelling outside of India occasionally, because it frees them from some of the pressures of fame.

"We do love to go to the supermarket to go shopping, which is something we don't do in India. You cannot do that. I mean if you go grocery shopping, you're going to shut the place down and you don't want to inconvenience anyone. But overall we enjoy that. … We're normal people!"

Asked if fame wears on him, he quips, "I don't worry about when they come to approach [me]. I think you should worry about the day they stop approaching you!"  

I remember, at one point in time, there were thousands of people behind the camera just waiting to see what I was going to do-  Abhishek Bachchan

While the Bollywood star doesn't mind taking photos or shaking hands with his fans, he said he still remembers the fear he felt on his first film set.

"I was just 21 or 22 years old, straight out of University in Boston, and I came onto this film set and I was just so happy to be doing it. I had not really thought about the kind of pressures and all that, but it kind of dawned on me when I was about to do my first shot," he said.

"I remember there were actually tractor loads of people that had come from neighbouring villages because they got to know that Amitabh Bachchan's son is going to be doing his first film. And I remember, at one point in time, there were thousands of people behind the camera just waiting to see what I was going to do. … I [made] a decision that night that I'm just going to have to compartmentalize all that and just lock it all away. Because if I'm going to be thinking about my father and my mother and their legacy and the pressure of being that child, I'm not going to be able to do my work."

Husband Material is in theatres now.

Download our podcast or click 'Listen' near the top of this page to hear the full interview with Abhishek Bachchan.

— Produced by ​Chris Trowbridge