Pratik Gandhi reflects on the box office lull for Bollywood: It’s a cyclic thing, it will settle down

The Hindi film industry is struggling at the box office, with work becoming uncertain for even renowned names, let alone new ones. But actor Pratik Gandhi, whose recent release Phule also faced this challenge at the ticket counters, sees it as an imminent phase. “Any industry will come to that flash point once where innovations will happen and things will change for good. It will settle down and again it will go up to that flash point. So, it’s a cyclic thing which will keep happening,” Pratik Gandhi insists.

The actor prefers to look at the positive side of it though, crediting the presence of different mediums and kinds of work. “It is a good time to be any artiste as there are so many avenues right now. Even if you have a story for a short film, you have an audience for that because there is a platform to showcase it. Earlier it was a problem, as you didn’t have a medium to show it. Now you have such opportunities. So, it is a great time to be an artiste, be it a writer, director or anybody,” he says.

However, Pratik acknowledges that while getting work might not be that difficult, the main challenge lies in entering the mainstream cinema. “It is very difficult to breakthrough in the mainstream industry. It’s highly competitive as there are so many actors. Apart from that, it’s very difficult for anyone coming from out of this industry and who doesn’t know anybody. You don’t know whom to approach. Whom will you meet and ask for work? You don’t even know where to go an give audition,” he says.

He insists that all an artiste requires is one break: “One break is what you need, in any form be it ad, films, OTT or whatever. You just want to be seen once in a good project so that people take notice and at least they approach you for auditions. My whole intention was to go to the point where you get to audition, and then people can decide. It’s a change that happened with me post Scam 1992,” he ends.