Annu Kapoor on Arundhati Roy: ‘With due respect to her, she has betrayed the country several times’

Annu Kapoor has been working as an actor for over four decades, but joining the entertainment industry was never his dream. Annu, whose maternal grandfather, paternal grandfather, and uncles were revolutionaries during India’s fight for independence, wanted to serve his motherland. The actor had earned 93% percent in his Class 12 examination, but his parents did not have the financial background to support his dreams of becoming an IAS, and Annu had to join his father’s theatre company instead to help support the family. Also Read| Annu Kapoor says stars didn’t do TV due to ‘snobbery’

In a recent conversation with Hindustan Times, Annu said that he could not complete his dreams of becoming an IAS officer, but takes his job as an actor very seriously to serve his motherland. However, joining politics is far from his mind.

He said, “I am not fit for politics. I don’t have the talent to be a politician. In one of my shows, I was explaining what is the literal meaning of a politician. Poly means many and in some latent slang, tician means ‘rengne waale keede (insects who crawl)’. Politicians or those in the judiciary or bureaucracy, all the people are by-products of our system. And unfortunately, our system is one of the most corrupt, hypocritical, and pretentious systems in the world. I am not bothered about Switzerland, America, or Guatemala, I am bothered about India. And I take my motherland very very seriously and I feel very pathetic about it.”

In another part of the interview, Annu spoke about Booker Prize-winning author Arundhati Roy, and accused her of betraying India. While talking about OTT platforms and acting, the actor said, “Those who are sitting on top of OTT, with due respect, have come from the ad world– who want to show everything within one minute. In the ad world, you have to sell those things which don’t have quality. You try to sell a false world. And I think even cinema is that way. In cinema, you ask an actor, who is a person, to be unreal to portray a character, but to make it seem real. If Amanda (me, the interviewer) is an actress. This is your real self. I have taken you as an actor, and I am asking you to be unreal, playing the role of Arundhati Roy, and to be real also. This is acting.”

He added, “Well I am just taking the name of that lady Arundhati Roy, with due respect to her, she has betrayed the country several times.”

Annu will be next seen in the Amazon Prime Video web series Crash Course as an owner of an educational institute in Kota, Rajasthan. The series, directed by Vijay Maurya and written by Manish Hariprasad, will premiere on the OTT platform on August 5.