EXCLUSIVE: Dulquer Salmaan on following dad Mammootty’s legacy: My biggest fear was I’ll be a failure to my legendary father

Dulquer Salmaan is one of the most popular actors in the industry. Dulquer, who made his acting debut with the action drama ‘Second Show’, followed the footsteps of his legendary father Mammootty. With hard work and talent, Dulquer has successfully carved a niche for himself in the industry. Today, he is one of the top actors down South. In an exclusive interview with Bollywood Bubble, Dulquer got candid about fighting the nepotism tag and following dad Mammootty’s legacy.

Talking about nepotism in the South Indian film industry, Dulquer said, “This notion of the South its four different industries and each place is different. So maybe in Telugu there’s always historically legacy actors. I don’t know many in Tamil maybe Prabhu sir or a few like that. Malayalam when I was growing up nobody, historically there was no second generation actor who made in Malayalam.”

 

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The actor added, “In my school days I used to think this is impossible. I’ll never get a chance. I’ll never make it because there’s no parallel you can’t compare anyone like give me an example of the second generation who has made it. It was like that at that time. And then, you know, a few of us started coming into the scene or like how Sunny (Deol) sir said there maybe a lack of youth or something and like Prithvi was amongst the first he really had to kind of bulldoze his way and find a little space for himself because my father was so… towering over everybody and constantly busy doing all kinds of roles. And then like me obviously like so it didn’t matter if you had a film background or not. It was also about I think this generation of actors finding some acceptance or roles or films written for them.”

He went on to add, “I was also very lucky to kind of be at the right place at right time where they were conceiving films for this age of actors. When I did like Ustad Hotel, I was playing somebody in college or studying or something and at that point there were just few of us who were kind of doing those roles so it’s also timing and it’s also luck. There was definitely a lot of love that I got through that film so it became like oh it’s so and so’s son and also in the film he really feels like somebody in our family because our character was like that. I think as I kept working and doing more work and maybe growing a bit is when I started facing this. Also this whole nepotism angle was not discussed before in Malayalam but now once the word is introduced so I’m seeing that now which is interesting now what to do.”

Furthermore, Dulquer opened up about his biggest fear and said, “My biggest fear in life was that I would fail in anything I do like I’ll be a failure son to this legendary father.”

Dulquer has delivered many hits in his career. He recently delivered a terrific performance in Chup: Revenge of the Artist.

Check out the entire conversation here-

Also Read: Will Dulquer Salmaan and Mammootty share screen space? The Sita Ramam star spills the beans