Abhay Deol has been popularly known for his roles in ‘Manorama: Six Feet Under’, ‘Oye Lucky Lucky Oye’, ‘Aisha’ and ‘Zindagi Na Milegi Dobaara’. While the actor has done lots of films, his choices have been rather unconventional, making him an outlier in the Deol family which has multiple members working in cinema.
Now, as Abhay opened up about the same in a conversation with ‘Filmfare’, he recalled how he had been a rebellious kid always. He also shared that his film choices certainly left his family concerned. Accepting it was a conservative household, Abhay qualified the statement that women from the family were not allowed to work. “They are allowed to work but not in films,” he said.
“While growing up we were pretty conservative, we were a joint family with seven kids in the house. Films were something I was exposed to from childhood, through my uncle and father. They came from humble backgrounds; they came from a village and for them, the big city and world of glamour was alien. They want to hold on to their small-town values, which I can see in retrospect. Back then, I didn’t understand why we were held back from going to ‘filmy parties’ as they call them or mingling with the industry kids or the industry. They were trying to protect us, but back then I was confused,” he added.
Saying he was always rebellious, Abhay also added, “What I did with the film industry, my family was not surprised at all. They always said I should either be a lawyer or an actor. If you ask Bobby or Sunny Deol, they will just tell you that I argue a lot. I started as a left-hander and they made me a right-hander and I kept questioning it. Early in my career, the film choices I made, they were concerned. They did make my first movie ‘Socha Na Tha’ and they were okay with that but with the later choices like ‘Manorama’ or ‘Ek Chaalis Ki Last Local’… They made peace with my choices with ‘Dev D’ and ‘Oye Lucky Lucky Oye’. They just didn’t want me to go down that path because they were concerned. My father was worried, he hated Manorama because that was not a language they understood or a change they saw happening.”