EXCLUSIVE: Deepak Tijori Confesses To Being Envious Of Irrfan Khan And The Kind Of Films He Did; Reveals A Dark Truth Of Awards & Nominations

Deepak Tijori is a film director and actor who has worked in Bollywood and Gujarati films for several years now. The actor, who became a household name after playing Shekhar in Aamir’s debut film Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikandar, is all set to impress the audience with his upcoming project, Echoes of Us. While promoting the short film, Deepak sat down for an exclusive interview with Bollywood Bubble and got candid about several things.

During the chat, Deepak Tijori revealed he is the most envious of Irrfan Khan and his films. Scroll below to read the snippets and watch the full interview.

Deepak Tijori Confesses To Being Envious Of Irrfan Khan

During a recent candid conversation, Deepak Tijori, who is best known for Aashiqui (1990) and Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikandar (1992), revealed the one Bollywood actor he was jealous of. He said, “There was always one actor I envied that was Irrfan Khan. Arrey, the kind of cinema he did, that cinema was the kind I wanted to do. But trust me, I’m touching that area now. Ittar is Irrfan cinema. What I’m doing again with Veena — that is, Irrfan cinema. And I wanted to do that, and I had been dying to do that, but I never got the opportunity because they always thought I was too commercial a property to be a part of that cinema. So they never even looked at me.”

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He added, “But I was always an actor, I was never a star breed. I always believed. I never refrained from doing songs, that’s why if you see me in the cinema, I don’t have songs to play, you know, like Shah Rukh Khan. You guys do all those boss-level songs, and I used to say, ‘Okay, I’ll do my work,’ but I never had songs, so I used to tell them. Don’t make me sing, yaar, I find it annoying. But they did the songs, and they became what they became. I did my work. But at the same time, I felt that I now want. Because of Us, I wrote it, and I wrote it because I met Joe, and Joe was also a director. He had directed earlier, but we became friends, and we thought, chalo, let’s do something.”

Deepak On Producers Misusing Him

Deepak recalled producers misusing him. He said, “So I told him, ‘Yaar, I’ve shown something and I want to do something, and I want to do this.’ So he loved it. He said, ‘Main direct karta hoon. Tu act karega, chalega?’ And then, you know, that is how this whole thing came up. And when it came up, it took another level, not like a short film, which is what I enjoyed. Even though it is a short film, see the making, the level that he brought it down to and now, eventually, all that I had given up the thought that I’ll ever come to this stage, that I’ll ever be nominated or that I’ll have some such recognition. And then I got a call from outside. People called and said, ‘Arrey yaar, you’re joking, right? Are you crazy, yaar? You’re killing me, yaar. Do you even know what you’re saying?'”

Deepak Was Never Nominated For Any Awards

He concluded, “The truth is, even he didn’t know that I had never in my life ever been nominated. Never nominated. This is true. So I had given up that thought. Sometimes, Ankita, every year I used to be like, yaar, did my name even make it to the nominations? The picture was a superhit, there was recognition among people, but I used to say yaar, my name’s not even there. Not even nominated. Then I’d say, okay, maybe the jury didn’t like my work. Maybe it didn’t meet their standards. I moved on. Every year, at some point, I kept waiting for the nomination list. So, people’s love, people’s affection. But when this one, this one call when he called me, I said, ‘Yaar, mat bol yaar, jale pe namak mat chidko. Are you serious, yaar?’ ‘You got nominated in the middle of Gaurav.'”

Watch The Full Interview

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