Rishi Kapoor lauds current actors, says he could never do what Ranbir and Ayushmann are doing

Mumbai: Actor Rishi Kapoor believes the audience today is more accepting of seeing senior actors in prominent roles on screen.

The veteran actor, who next features in Jeethu Joseph's "The Body" with Emraan Hashmi and Sobhita Dhulipala, said filmmakers have started to treat their films' cast at par with each other. "It's a different scenario today. He (Joseph) has made a film with me and Emraan Hashmi where we both are playing important roles in the film. Today, it has become possible for me to do an important role which needs a senior actor," Rishi told PTI. He referenced to the casting controversy around "Saand Ki Aankh" and said the makers could have taken age-appropriate artistes as they would have looked the part. "They had a controversy in 'Saand Ki Aankh', about the age. These two girls are young but they could've easily taken two senior actors and they would have looked the part more if not anything else," he added.

There was a row over casting of Taapsee Pannu and Bhumi Pednekar as elderly sharpshooters in "Saand Ki Aankh". Both the actors had responded to the controversy, saying no one should be stopped from portraying any role. Rishi said it is a welcome change that actors of all ages are welcome on the screen because the audience wants it. "They don't want to only see dancing and action. Today actors like me have got work because of this change," he added.

The 67-year-old actor also revealed that Joseph, who had helmed the Malayalam thriller "Drishyam", was keen to have him headline the Hindi remake, which eventually featured Ajay Devgan. "Jeethu had directed the original 'Drishyam' and at that point of time -- I know this because the director told me -- he wanted me to work in the Hindi version. If you see the Tamil version, it has Kamal Haasan. It was supposed to be a senior hero and not a junior... it was meant to be a senior man. "But I was not a saleable star. I couldn't get the audiences in so obviously they would not make the film with me," Rishi said.

The actor believes there has been a shift in terms of storytelling, something that has highly influenced him and his choices as an artiste. "The changes have come today, which weren't there when I was a leading star. Unfortunately, (earlier) actors were slotted in their images, 'action hero, romantic star, dancing hero.' For 25 years, all throughout my career, I was slotted as a romantic hero. "Today when you see the new boys, my son, working in different kinds of films... Ranbir did a 'Barfi'. I could never do 'Barfi', 'Sanju' or 'Rocket Singh' in my time. I could never do these kinds of experimental films, which worked big time. I could never do films which Ayushmann Khurrana is doing. These are all content based films." The actor said the best part about the new age cinema is that even the audience wants to see different, newer stories on screen. "The audience isn't expecting Ayushmann to don a jersey and go to Switzerland to sing a song. Today, films are coming without songs also. It's a different trend. The audience is more liberal, they want to see better stuff not the same old stale stuff," he added.

"The Body", which is a remake of the Spanish film of the same name, is scheduled to be released on December 13.