The excessive “business-mindedness” of actors in recent times has hindered their commitment to craft, veteran filmmaker Subhash Ghai said recently, claiming that Ranbir Kapoor is the only star to have emerged from the current generation of actors in Hindi cinema.

In a conversation with Komal Nahta on the latter’s YouTube channel Game Changers, Ghai explained how actors have shifted focus from performance to brand-building, leading to a decline in artistic dedication.

“We never used to call actors by their name on the set. We would call them by their character’s name. We would call Anil Kapoor ‘Lakhan’ and Jackie Shroff ‘Ram’ on the sets of Ram Lakhan. We do this because when they shoot for the film for a year or nine months, they get into that character, and the whole film’s team knows them by their character’s name. Characters are the most important thing in making a good story because they are telling the story,” said 80-year-old Ghai.

However, according to Ghai, today’s actors have a different approach, prioritising their personal brand over their character work. “These days actors think of themselves as a brand. The actor would be surrounded by talent managers who would read the script. How will you understand how the character will look on the screen by reading the script? They should ask the actors to pick a scene and act and judge whether they can do it or not,” he commented.

“The actors make their talent managers sit in these meetings, and it is because those talent managers will bring in money, deciding what all brands fit into that project. The managers also decide what kind of an image the actor will have in the project. Just to judge that, they are in the meeting. This practice wasn’t there earlier, and they were also superstars. They just had secretaries,” the Taal helmer added.

Ghai pointed out that stars from the ’80s continue to dominate the industry because they emerged from a culture that prioritised acting over commercial strategies. “The ’80s actors are still superstars… like Salman Khan, Shah Rukh Khan, Akshay Kumar, Aamir Khan, and others. It is because they have come from that culture. In 10 years, who all became stars? No one except Ranbir Kapoor.”

Ghai’s remarks come amid an ongoing debate about the lack of fresh ideas in Bollywood. Filmmaker Hansal Mehta took to social media recently and opined that the Hindi film industry needed a reset. Mehta also suggested that Adarsh Gourav, Vedang Raina, Ishaan Khatter, Zahan Kapoor, Aditya Rawal, Sparsh Shrivastava, Abhay Verma, Lakshya and Raghav Juyal had the potential to be the future stars of Bollywood.