I’m not someone who sits and waits for things to happen: Kunal Kapoor

It wasn’t frustrating for actor Kunal Kapoor to wait for the right projects as he chose to explore his creative side. The actor says he invested the time in growing and getting better. He developed diverse projects during the time.

“I think the last couple of years have been really fortunate. I have had a chance to work with interesting people – whether it is Tigmanshu Dhulia, Jayaraj, Gauri Shinde or Reema Kagti. And I am soon starting a bunch of other films, said Kunal over the phone from Mumbai.

“There is very good work which is coming my way. I am not the sort of person who sits and waits for things to happen. I have always been the sort of person who believes that if you want something and you are not getting it, then you have to go out there and create it.” So, he spent the last couple of years developing scripts, characters and movies that he would like to be a part of. “It could have been very frustrating, but it was not because I invested the time in growing and getting better at what I do,” added the actor.

Kunal says he was also not frustrated as he is “not somebody who delves in the past”. “I am somebody who is always constantly looking at what I can do. So, I think when you are in state of action, you don’t get frustrated.”

Kunal made his debut with Meenaxi: Tale of 3 Cities in 2004, and soon got a tag of “Indian Matthew McConaughey”.

He has featured in critically acclaimed films like Rang De Basanti, Luv Shuv Tey Chicken Khurana, Kaun Kitney Paani Mein and Dear Zindagi. There were some failures as well with Hattrick and Raag Desh.

Apart from acting, Kunal is involved in several vocations like writing, and even came out with a crowdfunding platform Ketto.

Talking about his passion for all, he said: “I enjoy all of them so much. I love acting. Before I became an actor, I was looking through a lot of professions and could not find what I loved. “And once I was in front of the camera, I was like ‘I want to do this for the rest of my life’. Writing is something I have been doing since I was very young. I start writing when I was 10 or 11. That is one thing which came very naturally to me. Technology is something I am obsessed with. And then sometime back I started this crowdfunding platform. I am very passionate about all these things.”

On the film front, he was last seen with Akshay Kumar in Gold. Directed by Reema Kagti, the film traced the Indian hockey team’s journey to getting its first post-Independence Olympic medal in 1948. “My first reaction when I read the script was actually of surprise. I was surprised because I thought nobody has actually made a film on a story like this,” Kunal said while talking about Gold which became the first Bollywood film to release in Saudi Arabia.

Kunal feels hockey is an “incredible sport” and “needs to be encouraged in India”.

“This is a sport which has got us the most amount of glory in the 1940s, 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s. We won our first gold at an international level in hockey in 1948 [as an independent nation — but had won the Gold at the Olympics in 1928, 1932 and 1936]. So it is sport which needs to be encouraged a lot,” said the actor, who is married to megastar Amitabh Bachchan’s niece Naina.

Sugandha Rawal/ IANS