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With director Sandeep Reddy Vanga’s Animal, Ranbir Kapoor He said he grew from a “boy to a man” but did he have to pay a price? After topping the bill in last year’s controversial blockbuster, Ranbir Kapoor has opened up, perhaps for the first time in detail, about the fractured reception to the revenge epic, which emerged as the biggest hit of his career despite harsh reviews.
Animal sparked a debate on social media, with many credible voices, including Javed Akhtar and Swanand Kirkire, criticising the film for its perceived misogyny and violence. The film’s gender politics, much like Vanga’s previous hit Kabir Singh, remained a topic of discussion for months after its release in December. In a new interview with businessman Nikhil Kamath, Ranbir Kapoor spoke about the fallout from Animal’s release and how people within the industry told him they were disappointed that he was the film’s lead. When the host claimed that films should not be a place from which society derives its sense of morality as they are only for entertainment, Ranbir added, “That was the intention, but it was misinterpreted.”
“Social media took a toll. They needed something to talk about, so they went around claiming that it was a misogynistic film. The thing is that the hard work that one puts in… I know that the director had done Kabir Singh, who also faced the same thing, the hard work gets diminished. Because this label is put on it, which is not true, the perception stuck with this film. So, the general public will speak highly of the film, but there are many people I know who tell me, ‘You should not have done this film, we are very disappointed in you. ’ And a lot of people in the film industry (said the same thing). I silently apologize and say, ‘I’m sorry, I won’t do it next time. ’ I don’t really agree with them, but I’m at that phase of my life where I don’t argue with anyone. If you don’t like my work, I will say sorry and try harder next time,” she said.
The actor said that although Animal had positioned itself as one of the highest-grossing Hindi films of all time, when he was offered the film and first heard the story, he was “very scared.” Ranbir said part of the reason he did Animal was to break free from his “good guy” image on screen.
“I had always followed a career path where I was doing good roles, trying to convey good social messages, basically playing the ‘good guy’, the romantic coming-of-age image that I had. So I thought it was very edgy, very adult-friendly. I was afraid that the public wouldn’t accept me. When the film came out, even though it did incredible numbers and we loved it, there is a large audience that found it misogynistic and wrong, in some ways.”
Asked if he would do the film again, Ranbir said yes. “I was stagnant and reaching a saturation point in my career. I was called the ‘next superstar’ for a long time – and I’m not saying I am today, because unless you have these continuous blockbuster films, you can’t be called a superstar – but Animal was the right film at the right time, to take another step forward. Because I had been stuck in the same state, so that was very important for me, for my confidence, to go from being a boy to a man in some ways.”
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