Showbiz is a very tricky business. You can be on cloud nine one Friday and smacked back on the ground the next. The stardom and the success sometimes make a fleeting appearance, and one needs to constantly work on successful projects to stay relevant.
Some of our leading actors of today have gone through that low phase, but then came one film that changed the whole trajectory of their career. Here’s a look at some of them:
Sidharth Malhotra-Shershaah
Sidharth’s last solo success came in 2014 with Mohit Suri’s Ek Villain, where he starred opposite Shraddha Kapoor. Since then, the only successful film Sidharth had been a part of was the Shakun Batra’s ensemble drama, Kapoor & Sons. However, with his stint as Captain Vikram Batra in the recently released Shershaah, the actor has been receiving praise from all nooks and corners with everyone hailing it as his career-best performance.
Salman Khan-Wanted
Salman has had a roller coaster of a career ever since he debuted as a supporting actor in Biwi Ho Toh Aisi. The ’90s were a golden period for him as his stint as ‘Prem’ in multiple films established him as the go-to romantic hero of the industry. But after that the actor had some hits and misses along the way. It was in 2009 that he arrived in Prrabhudeva’s Wanted, the film that changed his career trajectory, establishing him not just as an actor but as a dominant force in the industry.
Akshay Kumar-Jaanwar
Akshay might seem as the money-making machine in Bollywood for the last decade or so, with him doing at least four to five films a year and all successful, but it wasn’t always so. There was a time when the actor was going through a very low phase of his career with almost all his films failing at the box-office and with the critics as well. But then Suneel Darshan took him in his 1999 release Jaanwar and that film set up a successful partnership that ran for almost a decade and established Akshay’s dominance as well.
Aditya Roy Kapur-Malang
Aditya started his career in films with two films that went unnoticed for his performance but then in 2013, he starred opposite Shraddha Kapoor in Aashiqui 2 that gave both the actors prominence and success. While Shraddha went on to establish herself as a leading actress, Aditya stumbled a bit. Even with his name associated with big projects, he failed to achieve success. But last year, he reinvented himself as an action hero in Malang opposite Disha Patani, and that set up a new phase in his career. His next was Anurag Basu’s Ludo that again was a success, and now he has Ahmed Khan’s OM: The Battle Within and Thadam remake as well.
Shahid Kapoor-Kabir Singh
Shahid’s acting skills were never in question ever since he debuted in Ken Ghosh’s Ishq Vishk, but what was in question was his film choices. He has gone through a big lull in his career before he bagged his first breakthrough, Imtiaz Ali’s Jab We Met. But even after that, it took time for makers to find a bankable leading actor in him for big projects. Eventually, it was the 2019 release Kabir Singh that did wonders for him. It was his first blockbuster that paved a new path in his career.
Ayushmann Khurrana-Andhadhun
Ayushmann’s name has been synonymous with social films that deal with taboo or uncomfortable subjects, ever since he debuted with Vicky Donor in 2012. So, critical appreciation followed him almost throughout his career, but it was Sriram Raghavan’s Andhadhun, that established his position as a bankable leading actor as well and as Ranveer Singh put it, gave rise to ‘Ayushmann’s kind of cinema’. The actor has since enjoyed success both critically and commercially.
Kartik Aaryan-Sonu Ke Titu Ki Sweety
For the first seven years of his professional life as an actor, Kartik was just known as the Punchnama boy. None of his films apart from the franchise worked, but come 2018, the actor appeared in Sonu Ke Titu Ki Sweety. The team was the same here but the success that followed was different. Just three years into that, and today Kartik is one of the most sought-after leading men in the industry with almost half a dozen big projects in the pipeline for him.
Rajkummar Rao-Bareilly Ki Barfi
Just like Ayushmann, Raj was also always lauded for his histrionics by the critics but it was the commerce side of the business that troubled him. In 2016, he appeared in Trapped, a film that proved his acting skills, but the next year, he achieved his breakthrough with Bareilly Ki Barfi that combined commerce and art for him. Even though he was a supporting actor in the film, his performance outshone all and landed him many big offers that also turned out to be big successes eventually.
Image source: IMDb
Image source: IMDb