At the unveiling of the Tiku Weds Sheru teaser, actress Kangana Ranaut discussed her struggles in the Bollywood industry. The movie, which stars Nawazuddin Siddiqui and Avneet Kaur, appears to centre around two opposing characters with aspirations to become actors. Speaking about the movie, Kangana claimed to have witnessed Bollywood’s “underbelly.”
Himachal Pradesh-born Kangana left her home at an early age to follow her goals. She struggled and took modelling jobs to make ends meet in Delhi before moving to Mumbai. She claimed that up to her on-screen debut in the Anurag Basu film Gangster in 2006, she had to deal with rejection every day.
In conversation with News18, “There are lakhs and lakhs of people coming to Mumbai every day with a dream. Where do these people go? What happens to them? Some of them run away from their homes. I was in a kind of situation where I had shut all the doors behind me. There was no going back for me. What happens to people like me? This thought often occurs to me. This was just one incident that happened in my life. Every day I would get rejected while auditioning. One selection changed my life when Anurag Basu had approved of me. Had that not happened, what would my life be?”
“If you come to think of it, I was driven by passion from the age of 15. I had not written love letters like other girls of my age because I was already on a film set by then. I was pursuing a career during my teenage years. Life was mostly full of struggles and a few successes. There’s no other story that I could tell because I don’t know anything else,” she further added. She then said, “All of us, including Nawaz sir (Nawazuddin Siddiqui), have gone through the grind of those struggling days. Today, we have everything like stardom and fans, and the world is very kind to us. But we have also seen the other side of Mumbai, of Bollywood and the underbelly of Bollywood as we call it like the shady audition offices and offers.”
Prime Video will start streaming Tiku Weds Sheru on June 23. Kangana’s forthcoming political drama, Emergency, will be the next film to feature her.
