Suniel Shetty on his career low phase: I screwed up, and won’t blame anyone else

Actor Suniel Shetty has bounced back, fitter and more optimistic than ever, but he accepts that in the past three years, his career graph had dropped because of his wrong choices.

He adds that he is not insecure about the success of his contemporaries, Akshay Kumar and Salman Khan, who were delivering blockbusters at a time when Suniel was doing little or nothing in films.

“I’m not unhappy or cribbing about where they are in their career. I’m not where they are because I screwed up. So, who is to blame for that? I can’t blame anybody else for that. If I made the wrong choice of films, then they are my choices,” says Suniel, who is back in showbiz as the host of the adventure reality show India’s Asli Champion.

He adds, “I strongly believe that to undo what I’ve done, I have to work hard to choose the right film. I don’t need to be greedy. The media have been very kind to me and have kept me alive [in the public eye] in the past three-and-a-half years.”

Elaborating on the wrong choices, Suniel says, “I supported people who were not financially very strong. Believing that a film would be very good, I went ahead with it.” The problem, adds the actor, is that a producer whose finances are weak would make mistakes such as changing shots; releasing the film without publicity; and without the right theatre. “There is a whole math that goes into it, and when somebody doesn’t understand the math, things don’t work out,” he says.

Suniel, who has been part of big films such as Border (1997), Dhadkan (2000), Hera Pheri (2000), and Main Hoon Na (2000), had his last proper release with Thank You (2011), co-starring Akshay Kumar, Bobby Deol, Irrfan Khan, Sonam Kapoor, Celina Jaitley, and Rimi Sen. Meanwhile, Suniel, who is also a film producer, made the films Rakht (2004) and Mission Istaanbul (2008), and was busy managing his restaurant business in Mumbai, established over a decade ago.

Suniel is thankful to his friends in the industry who have always supported him. The actor says, “Salman, Ajay or Akshay… all of them supported me. Somewhere I feel that buzz was also created by them [in the media]. I honestly believe that when you’re content and don’t hold anything against anybody, not the Almighty, nor your contemporaries, everything falls in place.”