'The key to long-term success is trying to constantly experiment'

Shahid Kapoor doesn’t want to become his template. The actor, who has been in the industry for more than 20 years, said the key to long-term success is trying to constantly experiment and never finding comfort in cliches. Shahid, who began as a romantic hero before switching to darker, edgier films in his career, said he can never operate from the space of picking films from the box office perspective, unlike many stars for whom this could be a criterion.

“I just don’t like doing the same thing again and again. I know that for many stars, not actors, that is the success formula. Maybe from a very business-oriented mindset, from the mindset of collections or numbers, a reliability mindset, I guess that makes a lot of sense. I am not that guy. I am fundamentally creative at heart. I didn’t take this job up to make safe decisions, to play safe and to do the same thing again and again. I wanted to do something new and challenging every time. I wanted to not know how something would turn out and go through the journey of discovery. I am okay with failing. I don’t have a problem because it teaches you a lot,” the actor told ‘Bollywood Hungama’.

Shahid said that in the industry, it is one’s long-term growth that defines their career trajectory. “In today’s times, people are thinking very short-term. Everybody has a three-year plan. Growth only happens if you do things you haven’t done before.”

Recalling the reaction his debut film ‘Ishq Vishq’ had generated, Shahid said he was dubbed a ‘chocolate boy’, a term he disliked. Shahid said he found the title limiting, as he wanted to be an artiste and not someone for ‘visual gratification’.

“When I did ‘Ishq Vishq’, the word that was associated with me was ‘chocolate boy’. I felt extremely bad and I wondered, ‘What did that even mean? Ye chocolate boy hota kya hai?’ I am an artiste. I want to express myself. I am not here only for visual gratification. Looking good and dressing well are just two layers. Then you have to dig deep and I started doing just that. I completely changed myself. I didn’t want to be clean-shaven and do the same thing. That became exciting for me. My father told me, ‘Beta jis din acting karna shuru kar doge, sher ke muh me khoon lag jayega’. You will derive the most happiness from that,” he added.