Shahid Kapoor is currently discussing his film ‘Deva’. In a recent interview, he talked about the challenges he faced with his mother and the struggles he experienced at the beginning of his career. When Shahid was growing up, his father was not always present, and his mother, Neelima Azim, raised him alone in Delhi, while his father, Pankaj Kapoor, lived in Mumbai.
In a conversation with the Indian Express, Shahid explained that after his parents’ divorce, his mother raised him by herself. As a result, he had to start working at a very young age. Neelima Azim was only 22 years old when Shahid was born, and she and Pankaj Kapoor divorced just three years later. Shahid’s mother was very young when he was born, and they had a close relationship, like friends. Wherever his mother went, she would take him along, and he felt like the elder son and the guardian of the house, even at a young age.
Shahid started working at the age of 18, beginning his career as a background dancer in many film songs and working on several advertisements. He said, ‘I think both my parents were high achievers, and I wanted to prove myself and do something big in life. I did not want to waste my life.’ One of the main reasons Shahid started working so young was that his mother was a single parent, and he did not want to be a burden on her. He wanted to support her and share her responsibilities, so he started earning money as soon as possible.
Shahid considers himself an outsider in the film industry, despite being the son of actor Pankaj Kapoor and actress Neelima Azim. He had to struggle to get his first film, and he always wanted to do well in his career, but he was not sure what the outcome would be. Shahid started his career with the 2003 film Ishq Vishk, and after facing some setbacks with films that did not do well at the box office, he gained recognition with Suraj Barjatya’s film ‘Vivah’ in 2006. He then acted in several successful films, including Imtiaz Ali’s ‘Jab We Met’, ‘Haider’, ‘Kaminey’, and others.
Shahid said, ‘People think that I became an actor because my father was an actor, but that’s not true. My father is an actor, but I never lived with him. I wanted to become an actor, but I did not know if I would succeed or not. My destiny has helped me a lot.’ Despite the challenges he faced, Shahid has established himself as a successful actor in the film industry, and he continues to work on new projects, including his current film ‘Deva’.