Originally posted by: gilmores
This makes me sad - only because I always liked Sushant from the beginning and rooted for him and I also lost interest in him/distanced myself a couple years ago..think it started after his break-up with Ankita...and then when I read rumors of his being difficult and the me too movement, I really wondered if and how he had changed so much? At that time, he reminded me of Farhan in LBC almost - someone who loses his way as he chased success in BW. Sigh. Was I just conditioned to move on from him?
I guess this is also what is making people mad - they feel like they were taken for a ride and conditioned to ignore him due to the systemic and continued rumors/sabotage/whatever you want to call it. I've enjoyed my for share of gossip so this makes me take a good and hard look at what I've enjoyed and how I've enabled this behavior for sure.
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I have watched Kis Desh and a little bit of PR but my primary introduction to him was JDJ. His dances and pairing with Shampa was really something else, ironically he was robbed of a very well deserving win on that show.
Then came his BW movies Kai Po Che, SDR, PK..peaked with MS Dhoni. I remember there being so much ...why and how does a "nobody" from TV get the big films and work with biggies? People had to link it to some other means/contacts - this is how used to nepotism we are and believe that unless you're an insider you can't make it in this industry, that when there is an outsider getting that success, we can't understand it, swallow it.
The smear campaign was obvious since PK. Who can forget the PR machinery around PK time making fun of the fact that Anushka was paired opposite a "small TV actor like Sushant" and not paired opposite Aamir, which led to her lashing out about how "Sushant is a small chapter in her life." Granted the PR mess was perhaps meant to insult Anushka but was really more if not equally insulting to Sushant... This is how the industry treats those who are not insiders...dismissive and insulting...
He was so so so good as Dhoni. As someone who is a huge Dhoni fan, I was genuinely very impressed with how well he got his body language and enacted him. I'm not going to lie - I was disappointed with the way Neeraj made that movie, but I can't fault Sushant at any point. There is no doubt that MS Dhoni with an insider would have been hailed as the next best thing, and I bet you everyone in that roundtable would have seen it. He had to toot his own horn and got labeled as arrogant for that.
I do think he was disillusioned when DBB bombed (another movie in which he was amazing)...then it was kinda downhill from there. Kedarnath was quite good but the media story was really all about Sara from the beginning and I enjoyed Chichore but it totally flew under the radar. I haven't seen Sonchiriya yet.
Can I also say, I just don't know what all this astrophysics and stars stuff is? I mean I just don't remember him as this "off" guy with these interests, not that I am a great big fan who followed him from the very beginning but still? Yes, he was quite intelligent, but I'm just taken aback with what all this love for astrophysics and universe is that every single person is parroting. Is that something he turned to in the last few years or he was always interested and didn't talk about it that much back then? I just don't get it.
I'd like to remember him as a goofy, fun, successful guy with a big ambition and dreams, who made it further in an industry than many do even with everything against him. I'm genuinely upset that he was made to feel like it was not enough.
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