When Anurag Kashyap Called Abhishek Bachchan A Bad Actor For His Yuva Performance: He Never Rose Above The Script

Anurag Kashyap and Abhishek Bahchcan may have worked amicably together on their film Manmarziyaan and produced a wonderful product but there was a time when the latter’s performance in Yuva had utterly disappointed the filmmaker.

Performance were the highlight of Mani Ratnam’s 2004 film with an ensemble cast and Abhishek Bachchan in his very first negative performance as Lallan was much appreciated by all except the film’s writer Anurag Kashyap.

Never one to shy away from sharing an honest opinion Anurag had voiced his disappointment at the time writing on his blog, “If John Abraham is a bad actor than Abhishek Bachchan is equally bad, but who has the b***s to write it? AB was great in Yuva to everybody except me. I am the one who wrote the goddamned lines. I wrote Lallan Singh and they were the best damn lines I ever wrote. And believe me, he didn’t understand half of it. He never rose above the script, but he won all the awards. His talent, and his career, the way it has shaped up are two different things and I do not envy him that. He is loved by people.”

Anurag’s disappointment led to him and Abhishek keeping each other at an arm’s length and not speaking for over a decade. The ice between them however melted and Abhishek Bachchan signed Manmarziyaan indicating that the two of them have let the past be in the past.

Talking about the whole controversy years later Abhishek had confessed in an interview to DNA, "That’s history now. I first worked with Anurag in Mani Ratnam’s Yuva (2004); he had written it. I don’t think he liked my work in the film (laughs). And it’s only fair because we had spent a lot of time doing readings for the film. So somewhere, maybe he felt a little disappointed when he watched the movie. But we never spoke about it. Now, we’ve put all that behind us."

Anurag too explained his side to the publication and spoke about what transpired, "I wrote in my blog that it could have been better. And I think Abhishek took it hard because that was a performance that everyone appreciated. He thought a writer usually doesn’t say such things. We didn’t talk to each other for 10-15 years."

Rivalries in Bollywood can last a lifetime and but all Manmarziyaan lovers would be really glad that it ended and both Abhishek and Anurag came together to produce this wonderful film.