Suniel Shetty, who turned 65 this month, recently penned down a heartfelt note on LinkedIn talking about how his priorities for working have changed and evolved over time. The actor mentioned how he used to work for money to provide a comfortable life to his family earlier, however, now he is not chasing those milestones.
But even after all these years, Suniel Shetty is getting good work. He was last seen in the comedy Welcome To The Jungle, and now he reportedly has an action film with actor Tiger Shroff in the pipeline. Ask him how he has managed to stay relevant even after all this time and he says, “I guess it’s because I’m not easily available. I’ve made sure that I only associate with people I believe will help me grow and do something that leaves a positive impact on people. I am relevant also because I have a very positive approach to life. I’m very content, happy and very secure and that is basically the relevance. I am who I am. I’m absolutely honest about everything that has happened in my life, whether it’s my failure or the mistakes I’ve made.”
The actor also asserts that not shying away from accepting his age, in front or behind the camera, has also helped him bag better work. “Accepting roles which were age appropriate is the only reason I’ve landed myself into this position, because there’s no point competing with kids half your age who are better looking, better built, and masters of their craft. It’s good to accept age gracefully, not only from a role perspective, but the role in my life also. I’ve accepted it very gracefully, be it of a husband, a son, a father or a grandfather. Even the physical changes that have happened in me, I’ve accepted them very gracefully. I’m consistently working on myself, so I wouldn’t say it’s anti-ageing, but I’ve delayed the process of ageing and it’s nothing to be shy about. Wrinkles will always be there and that is a part of my life now,” he says.
Once the poster boy of masculine protagonists in Hindi films during the ’90s, Shetty admits that the portrayal of masculinity has changed in Bollywood with alpha and hypermasculine heroes taking centre stage. Comparing it to the ’90s, he says, “Alpha were the scripts then. They were very strong character-wise. It was for the love of the country, uniform, love of the mother, sister, family, and that was the alpha male. It’s a bit negative today probably as there would be too much violence, because we wanna make it as real as possible, as gruesome as possible. The ’90s films weren’t as gruesome then. It’s sometimes difficult to even watch a complete action scene because of blood and gore in it, and that’s the only thing that I don’t like about films today,” he ends.