Went Through a Difficult Journey of Lobbies and People Sidelining Me, Says Vivek Oberoi

Referring to his public feud with Salman Khan that allegedly sent him into professional free-fall, Vivek Oberoi had once said that he became “the guy nobody was supposed to work with.” The 43-year-old actor, however, is on a road to rebuild his career.

His string of impressive performances in critically acclaimed films such as Omkara, Shootout at Lokhandwala, Vivegam and Lucifer are suffice to make the audience believe that his career resurrection has the staying power.

He says, “I’m a very empowered person. I went through a very difficult journey of lobbies and people disempowering and sidelining me. But I clambered my way back in and I literally built my way back in. I empower myself every single day. I empower and enable as many people as I can in different walks of life. I’ve built a niche for myself as an actor, a philanthropist and a businessman. What I never do is I never give my power to anybody else.”

The actor is next gearing up to reprise his role as Vikrant Dhawan, the owner of one of the world's leading sports management companies, in Amazon Prime’s Inside Edge season 2. Interestingly, there are some striking similarities between Vivek and his character of Vikrant in terms of the rise and fall of the latter's in the show.

“I have done about 47 films in about seven languages. I have seen some crazy amount of success by the grace of god. I have probably had the most amount of obituaries written for my career. I have a record for that for sure. So, I think the parallel between Vikrant and me is that we both are survivors.”

“My dad told me one thing which I remember and continue to live by, ‘don’t go mad when you become successful and don’t panic in hard times.’ So if a film fails, do I stop being a good actor? What about all the awards that are on my shelf and the fans that I have reaching out to me on social media everyday? That should give me enough confidence and feedback to believe in myself. I think I’m blessed to be a part of something like Inside Edge,” he adds.

Further talking about his character, the actor says, “I truly believe that the time has come for people to enjoy layered characters. It used to be black character, white character, hero, villain or anti-hero. But I think with the advent of web series where you have 9-10 hours to hold an audience unlike theatre— how do you engage someone in a whole season if you’re just playing a simple white character? It’s boring. So, to layer that character up is exciting.”