Rohit Shetty, Rajkumar Hirani, Sanjay Leela Bhansali – Do Actors Need A ‘Star Director’ To Boost Their Careers? ( Photo Credit – Facebook; Wikimedia )
Advertisement
If we ask you to choose between the following two films: one has “a bad script & good performances” & the other boasts of “good performances but has a terrible script”, which one would you pick to watch? Well, this question is as tricky as today’s topic of discussion. Do you need a star director to be a star? What Sanjay Leela Bhansali has done with Ranveer Singh or Rohit Shetty with Ajay Devgn, Rajkumar Hirani with Aamir Khan, does every actor needs that to become a bona fide star? Because everyone can’t be Salman Khan.
Out of 14 films, Ajay has starred in 10 films & made special appearances in another 2. This means Shetty has worked with Devgn 10 times out of 14 during his lifetime of direction. In all those 12 times, Rohit Shetty has just gifted the ‘most imporsn’ roles in his films. Ajay’s growth in the second innings of his career coold be drawn parallel to Rohit’s growth throughout the lifetime of being a massy director.
Ajay Devgn has done well for himself apart from Shetty’s films & vice versa but the unimaginable reach of those 12 projects has definitely catapulted/escalated the star’s growth speeding up the process which would’ve taken time if they wouldn’t have found each other.
Since Ranveer Singh’s debut (Band Baaja Baaraat, 2010) Sanjay Leela Bhansali has directed just 4 films and 3 of them have starred Ranveer Singh, Deepika Padukone: Goliyon Ki Raasleela Ram-Leela, Bajirao Mastani & Padmaavat. Just these 3 films almost earned a round figure of 600 crores at the box office. We’ve all witnessed how Sanjay Leela Bhansali has been an incremental part of Ranveer’s career, even he can’t stop giving the credits of being such a huge star to him.
If we edit out these 3 films out of Ranveer Singh, and Deepika Padukone’s filmography, do you think they would’ve been in the position they are currently?
Aamir Khan with 2 back to back flops in Thugs Of Hindostan & Laal Singh Chaddha has 2 films in his top 5 highest-earning movies directed by Rajkumar Hirani (3 Idiots, PK). The hypothetical theory of “if Hirani had directed Laal Singh Chaddha, things would’ve been different” is also some interesting food for thought. But, can you imagine Aamir Khan’s current success without Rajkumar Hirani? Remember how 3 Idiots changed the game for Aamir or PK letting him to just expand his universal connect? That won’t have been possible without Rajkumar Hirani.
If you think you have an answer to all the above questions, wait for it because there have been actors like Hrithik Roshan, Ranbir Kapoor (no Imtiaz Ali didn’t actually quite give him the commercial success he owned), Salman Khan (if you think Sooraj Barjatya is an answer here, remember Salman was almost finished with back to back flops before Dabangg in 2010 but he made a crackling comeback without the Rajshri messing the trend we are discussing), Akshay Kumar who have achieved success without sticking to some particular storyteller & have made sure to keep their performances top-notch even with pretty-new directors.
There is no definite answer to the question that we asked at the start of this article or the topic of discussion, some actors find their way out in any film (like Shah Rukh Khan in Fan, Ranbir Kapoor in Bombay Velvet) but then there are good films ruined by decent actors doing not-so-great acting (Sara Ali Khan in Love Aaj Kal 2, Arjun Kapoor in Panipat). What do you think? Share your thoughts to give this discussion a clearer conclusion.
