00:00Me being successful does not mean my kids are going to be successful
00:03even if I teach them everything that I know and how to do it.
00:05Most of the films I signed were discards of better-known actors
00:08and the producers could not find anyone else to do them.
00:10I did them all to make sure that I was working to avoid unemployment.
00:14I just didn't want to be poor.
00:15I worked very hard, there were other people around it
00:17and I became a big star, the films became big hits.
00:20So I believe the true path to success is through the fear of failure.
00:25George Burns said that acting is all about honesty.
00:29If you can fake that, you've got it made.
00:33And he couldn't have defined it better.
00:34Honest and fake, yes, that's what I feel as a creative person all the time.
00:38Many a nights I have gone back home after receiving an award
00:41pumped up and all happy
00:43and just to read on the internet
00:45that what I really deserved was the golden banana
00:48for the worst actor of the year award.
00:51Yeah, it's called Kela Awards or something like that, yeah.
00:55Yeah.
00:55And I, I become heartbroken, angry and completely convinced
01:01that bananas and critics both should have their skins peeled
01:04and fed to the monkeys.
01:08I momentarily lose my ability to give and close up.
01:12And here's where the trick is.
01:14When you are in this place of despair,
01:16when you walk out of this college, this university
01:18and walk the path of life,
01:20where the world is tearing you down into yourself,
01:23there's only one thing you can do to survive.
01:25Hang on to who you are inside.
01:27Life as a creative person is like walking on a tightrope.
01:31I have to keep balancing, I have to keep the balance.
01:33I begin to lose myself in my own melodrama.
01:37It is frustrating that I find myself living up
01:39to other people's interpretation of what I ought to be.
01:42And when faced with dissent or unappreciation,
01:44I start losing my love affair with my own audience.
01:47It becomes a tight balance act to keep doing what I do best
01:50and not be bothered by the reactions
01:52of the people I do it for in the first place.
01:54I dance harder, I cartwheel longer,
01:57and I pivot on my rope, stretched taut beneath my feet,
02:01and I try not to slip.
02:02I can slide but never fall.
02:04And all this while, I have to keep a smile on my face
02:07and keep signing autographs and taking pictures.
02:10And why do I do this?
02:11Because I'm a funambulist, trying to balance my action
02:15and exterior reaction to my naked show of who I am inside.
02:20Yet when I'm playing this real life illusion out,
02:22more often than not, my honest self is sitting
02:25in the audience, applauding my performance
02:27while laughing heartily at my own stupidity.
02:30So my little kids and friends here,
02:33learn to laugh at yourself too.
02:35Whether I like it or not, my life has also been
02:37in constant play with what the world calls success.
02:41Me being successful does not mean my kids
02:43are going to be successful, even if I teach them
02:44everything that I know and how to do it.
02:46So I feel that talking about success
02:48is completely a big waste of time.
02:50Instead, let me tell you very honestly,
02:53whatever happened to me happened
02:54because I've always been terrified of failure.
02:57I don't want as much to succeed
02:58as much as I don't want to fail.
03:00I come from a very normal, lower middle class family.
03:03I saw a lot of failure.
03:05My father was a beautiful man
03:07and the most successful failure in the world.
03:10My mother also failed to stay long enough with me
03:14to see me become a big movie star.
03:16We were quite poor actually, and let me tell you,
03:18poverty is not an ennobling experience at all.
03:22Poverty entails fear and stress and sometimes depression.
03:25I watched my parents go through this several times.
03:28At an early age after my parents died,
03:30I equated poverty with failure.
03:32I just didn't want to be poor.
03:35So when I got a chance to act in films,
03:37it wasn't out of any creative desire.
03:39I say this honestly.
03:40It was purely out of the fear of failure and poverty.
03:44Most of the films I signed were discards
03:45of better known actors and the producers
03:47could not find anyone else to do them.
03:50I did them all to make sure
03:51that I was working to avoid unemployment.
03:54The timing or something was right.
03:56I worked very hard.
03:57There were other people around it and I became a big star.
04:00The films became big hits, which means sometimes
04:03a success is not the direct result of actions
04:06and let nobody tell you that.
04:08Success sometimes just happens, really.
04:12It is accidental and we have to take credit for it.
04:15I do it sometimes surely out of embarrassment.
04:19So I believe the true path to success
04:21is through the fear of failure.
04:23If you aren't scared enough of failing,
04:25you're unlikely to succeed.
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