Mumbai
When Dulquer Salmaan was entering the film industry, the actor says he was fighting a lot of apprehension, partly due to his own insecurities and the pressure of living up to his father and superstar Mammootty’s legacy.
Salmaan made his screen debut in 2012 with the crime-thriller “Second Show” and found massive success the same year with the National Award-winning drama “Ustad Hotel”.
Over the years, the 35-year-old actor emerged as one of the biggest stars of Malayalam cinema with films like Anjali Menon’s “Bangalore Days”, Sai Pallavi-starrer “Kali”, “Charlie”, and “Kurup”, among others.
He also gained widespread acclaim with Mani Ratnam’s Tamil romantic-comedy “O Kadhal Kanmani” and eventually made his Hindi debut with 2018’s “Karwaan”, which starred Irrfan Khan.
In an interview, Salmaan said in his decade-old journey in the industry he had initially put a lot of pressure on himself to live up to his father’s name.
“I didn’t know if I would make it, I didn’t know if I would survive, if people would accept me. I had a lot of apprehensions when I was coming to the industry. When you are in your 20s, you have all these fears and insecurities. I was stepping into my dad’s shoes. Forget me, I don’t think anyone can challenge or replace him.”
“I used to feel quite under pressure because of that. Not that I had to be as good as him, but I didn’t want to embarrass him in any way or spoil that legacy. So I used to put a lot of pressure on myself over these things, I spent a lot of years like that, taking every step carefully,” the actor said.
Salmaan said he grew out of that pressure “organically” and credited the films that came his way for making him an assured artiste.
“It was destiny or divine intervention that I got some great films quite early in my career. I got to collaborate with some great directors. I got offers from other languages too and I knew these were solid films, so I tried that as well. That helped me,” he added.
