THE COMEBACK KID

Buoyed by his performance in Singham Returns, Arjun Kapoor doubles down on creativity.

- ANKUR PATHAK

ROHIT SHETTY’S COP drama Singham Returns boasts an ensemble of stars, each delivering their part in this characteristically high-octane, all-star affair. Yet, it is Arjun Kapoor who emerges as the film’s unexpected revelation. As the unnervingly sinister Danger Lanka, Kapoor crafts an elevated performance imbued with powerful intensity.

For an actor who burst onto the scene with the explosive Ishaqzaade, the downward spiral of Kapoor’s career wasn’t just a professional setback—it became a personal reckoning. In the cascade of disappointments, one question cut deeper than any other: Do people even care? When your entire existence hinges on public adulation, its absence doesn’t just bruise—it threatens to obliterate.

“There’s a lot of noise that shows up when things don’t pan out,” Kapoor says, “And that noise often gets elevated because it taps into your worst fears. And you do wonder: Is the audience still there?” He says he went a little too internal in his quest for introspection. He thought he’d figure this out on his own—like he had several times before. But this was different. People around him became aware that he was struggling to get out of bed. Eventually, he headed to therapy. The trigger was the realization that this space was alienating him from the thing he loved the most: cinema.

“I stopped watching films, consuming cinema, stopped going to theatres. I stopped being able to embrace other people’s good work and started sensing a kind of bitterness growing within me. I realized I needed somebody to just listen to me. As I let it all out, the answers were smack in front of me. My therapist just directed me to my own words. I knew what was going on with me theoretically but I had to put it into practice.”