Uploaded June 2026 | Updated September 2026, 3 weeks ago
Anupama Chopra sits down with cover star Shahid Kapoor for The Hollywood Reporter India, as the actor returns to screens in Homi Adajania's Cocktail 2 alongside Kriti Sanon and Rashmika Mandanna. Shahid explains why, after years of alpha, edgy and layered roles, he was drawn to playing someone warm, likable and relatable for the first time in a long while, and how Adajania's grounded, three-dimensional take on the genre pushed him into fresh territory. He talks about submitting completely to a director's vision from day one, the discipline of trying to do something familiar in a genuinely different way, and what it means to find something new this deep into a 23-year career.
In a remarkably candid conversation, Shahid reflects on a run of films that won him praise even when they didn't land at the box office, and reveals a major shift in how he now works — insisting on group narrations rather than choosing scripts on instinct alone, and finally letting go of his long attempt to fuse pure cinema with commercial scale. He speaks about the churn Hindi cinema is going through, why writers walked away during the era of remakes and franchises, the unspoken economics of visibility and manufactured online perception, and his refusal to carry the pressure of the thousand-crore benchmark. Along the way he opens up about stardom and sense of self, the cruelty he believes the pursuit of excellence can demand, his lifelong love of motorcycles, and why he is in no rush to lock his next film after Cocktail 2 and Farzi 2.
00:00 Introduction
06:08 The artistic risk of repeating himself
12:46 Trusting your gut, cinema versus commerce
19:09 Stardom and holding onto yourself
25:55 Why negativity comes with fame
32:11 Being hard on himself and others
38:53 Why he won't rush his choices
#ShahidKapoor #Cocktail2 #THRIndia
Anupama Chopra sits down with cover star Shahid Kapoor for The Hollywood Reporter India, as the actor returns to screens in Homi Adajania's Cocktail 2 alongside Kriti Sanon and Rashmika Mandanna. Shahid explains why, after years of alpha, edgy and layered roles, he was drawn to playing someone warm, likable and relatable for the first time in a long while, and how Adajania's grounded, three-dimensional take on the genre pushed him into fresh territory. He talks about submitting completely to a director's vision from day one, the discipline of trying to do something familiar in a genuinely different way, and what it means to find something new this deep into a 23-year career.
In a remarkably candid conversation, Shahid reflects on a run of films that won him praise even when they didn't land at the box office, and reveals a major shift in how he now works — insisting on group narrations rather than choosing scripts on instinct alone, and finally letting go of his long attempt to fuse pure cinema with commercial scale. He speaks about the churn Hindi cinema is going through, why writers walked away during the era of remakes and franchises, the unspoken economics of visibility and manufactured online perception, and his refusal to carry the pressure of the thousand-crore benchmark. Along the way he opens up about stardom and sense of self, the cruelty he believes the pursuit of excellence can demand, his lifelong love of motorcycles, and why he is in no rush to lock his next film after Cocktail 2 and Farzi 2.
00:00 Introduction
06:08 The artistic risk of repeating himself
12:46 Trusting your gut, cinema versus commerce
19:09 Stardom and holding onto yourself
25:55 Why negativity comes with fame
32:11 Being hard on himself and others
38:53 Why he won't rush his choices
#ShahidKapoor #Cocktail2 #THRIndia
