EXCLUSIVE: 7-8 of us stayed in one small kholi: Anil Kapoor opens up on his family’s financial woes

Anil Kapoor, better known as Mr India in Bollywood, has always wowed his fans with his charisma. He started his Bollywood career with Woh Saat Din and still he stuns audiences with his acting chops. He is full of life and is aging like fine wine. Anil’s earlier days were not bed of roses. He and his family had to struggle financially. His father, Surinder Kapoor was a producer but he had to struggle a lot in Bollywood before he could establish himself. In Bollywood Bubble’s His Story Season 1, the JugJugg Jeeyo actor opened up on battling terrible financial lows and staying in a small kholi, to doing odd jobs and finally breaking it into Bollywood.

Anil started working at a very young age when his father had health issues. He said, “When you start from scratch and work your way up, it’s much more satisfying. We came to know he (father) has heart issues. In those days heart issues were a very big thing. That was kind of a turning point, I said I have to now start working and let my dad chill. I was pretty young, 17-18 years old.

On doing odd jobs, Kapoor said that he loved doing them. From waking up the actors, picking them up, fetching them from the airport, to dropping them to the location, looking after them, and getting the right snacks, he did all kinds of odd jobs. He added, “Then, of course, I was upgraded to doing a bit of shopping of hardware for the shoot, and then scouting for locations, fixing and negotiating the prices for the locations. Then I was upgraded to the casting director. I was casting director for Hum Paanch, that’s the first time my name appeared in the titles where I was mentioned as the casting director. After that, I did my course of acting. I was doing bit roles from 1977 to 1982. I did Telugu films and I did Kannada films, and then, of course, Woh Saat Din happened.”

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by anilskapoor (@anilskapoor)

Talking about his father further, he said, “My dad was always nice to people no matter how much exhausted he was. He was very generous, go up to the car to drop them and I think that also comes very automatically to me. Somewhere it’s the legacy from my father who was a gentleman, innocent, naive, giving and loved by everybody.”

Anil also recalled his family living in the garage of Prithviraj Kapoor, because of financial difficulties. He then said, “To be honest with you, I wasn’t born there. My mum and dad stayed there. It was kind of an outhouse. That was in Chembur, and from there, we moved to Tilak Nagar, which was also a small, one-room kholi, where we were almost seven-eight of us in one room.”

Watch Anil Kapoor’s interview here.

Also Read: EXCLUSIVE: Anil Kapoor’s old school romance with wife Sunita Kapoor will melt your heart, watch