Salman Khan: My dad didn't help me when I was starting out

Why wouldn't Salman Khan's father help him?

Actor Salman Khan. Pic: ScoopWhoop.com

Actor Salman Khan has a reputation. Or maybe not, because he’s so unpredictable that you don’t know which of his elements will shine through when. He could be cracking jokes or telling you off. However, what remains constant about him is that he is blunt, and honest in expressing his opinion. For instance, he makes no bones in admitting that his father, veteran writer Salim Khan, never suggested his name to producers when he wanted to become an actor, and that he had to look for work himself.

“When I was growing up, my father would recommend Sunny Deol’s, Sanjay Dutt’s or Kumar Gaurav’s name to the filmmakers who came to our house. But not mine. So I asked him why he did not recommend my name. And he asked me, ‘all these producers come to our house, did anyone ever ask me why don’t you recommend Salman? No. The biggest thing is that the producer or director should themselves see it in you... they should say, ‘arey, ye ladka hai, isko lete hain...’. For me, it never happened. So I had to go out and ask for work,” says the actor, who has helped many star kids kickstart their career. In his next production, he’s launching actor Aditya Pancholi’s son Sooraj, and actor Suniel Shetty’s daughter Athiya. 

Khan gives another example. “Tiger (Shroff) didn’t get approached ... Jackie (Shroff; Tiger’s father) used to ask us to launch him. And it was clear that when Tiger comes of age, we’d launch him as his dad had made it known that Tiger was interested in acting,” he says.

First published in Hindustan Times