Failure of DP and PC will make it difficult for Indian actors in HW?

The original Badman' of Bollywood, Gulshan Grover has been doing few Hindi films but has been a part of various international projects. He is one of the first commercial Indian actors to have made the transition from Bollywood to Hollywood and allowed his work to do the talking. In a candid conversation with indianexpress.com, the star villain talks about why Indian actors find it difficult to find international projects, where our actors stand on a global map, and why the failure of Deepika Padukone's xXx and Priyanka Chopra's Baywatch is a bad sign for Indian actors trying their talent abroad.

You've been a part of various films, Bollywood, Hollywood and world cinema. Your transition from Bollywood to Hollywood never made any noise. Why so?

As you rightly said, I am the first commercial Bollywood actor who started the transition from Bollywood to Hollywood. There were many reasons for me to do so. One of them was that the normal way of growth here is that you struggle, then you become successful, then you have a lot of trophies in your home, then you have lots of hits, and then at a certain age you retire and you get a lifetime achievement award. Then you sort of grow fat and live your life comfortably! Amitabh Bachchan came and changed the latter part of a film star's life! At 50 he grew that white beard, and started to do roles that were central in the film, of course even if he wasn't a hero, he was as one in the film.

It was his forward thinking, Amitabh Bachchan's! I thought if you have dedicated your life to a passion, you have to take it to the next level! And that next level for we Indian actors is to go international. That is something we are frightened of, it is totally out of our comfort zone, it is a new place, and we are around new people. You are a big star back in your country, people will respect you and give you work only if you can deliver and not by who you are back home! When I went there, there was no internet and they didn't know what work we do, our stardom and popularity, and what kind of films we have. Real Hollywood was not aware of our presence and our work, they didn't know who Amitabh Bachchan is or Shah Rukh Khan is. Indian films were only shown in a few Indian pockets there. These are the people who thought of commercial Bollywood actors to be incapable and inadequate of talent and world exposure, they thought real actors were from theatre or from art cinema.

My problem with that was that these are my colleagues who are great at what they do, and just because they are paid a better salary and because they are popular, doesn't make them bad actors. It is just that here they are popular for certain kinds of roles and they recycle these roles for that matter.👏 These are some of the reasons I explored the international cinema, and I was shocked that people don't know about the kind of work my colleagues and I do or did. It is difficult to sit down big international directors and make them watch a three-hour film, without subtitles, earlier we didn't have subtitles on VHS.

Hollywood was of the opinion that if you want to work in Hollywood, leave your country and stay there to work. But I wanted to change that. Why should we leave our country and go there to find work? Do they ask Hugh Grant, Nicole Kidman, Jackie Chan or Jean Reno to do that?

Some of the recent releases have hurt our position. Like xXx has hurt our stature at the negotiating table.That we have India's leading actor with such huge premieres, but people didn't really come to watch the film. Unfortunately, Baywatch and a film before that too. The big last money grossing film from Hollywood is Jungle Book, and it had just voices. So unless we don't generate that kind of money, we don't have the negotiating power, and anybody who is saying that they are doing well is simply lying.