‘MY LOWEST POINT WAS AT THE START OF MY CAREER’
Pooja Hegde calls her journey a roller-coaster ride and says every film comes with its own destiny
Pooja Hegde has an impressive lineup of movies coming out in the near future. However, getting to this point — having an interesting filmography — hasn’t been an easy journey. The actor admits that she has experienced her fair share of ups and downs. “The lowest point was at the start of my career. It wasn’t like one film took off and there was no looking back. It was like one film didn’t do well, then there was a year where I didn’t have work, then I wasn’t getting the kind of films I wanted to do. And when I finally got those, they didn’t work either, and then one film finally worked for me in Telugu. Since then, it’s been amazing,” says the 31-year-old, who has been a part of hits such as Ala Vaikunthapurramuloo (2020) and Beast. She calls her journey a rollercoaster ride and adds, “My highest point was when I had six hit films in a row.”
Ask if she’s concerned about the box-office collections of her films, and she denies, saying: “I feel every film comes with its own destiny. The moment I start attaching myself to the box office, tomorrow, if a film doesn’t do well, that would affect me. So you have to equally not let success or failure affect you.”
The 31-year-old recently shot for Kabhi Eid Kabhi Diwali with actor Salman Khan and has Cirrkus with actor Ranveer Singh. In Telugu, she is doing a film with actor Mahesh Babu. Does she look at this as the best phase of her career? She says, “I don’t want to look at it that way, but rather as the most blessed phase of my career. I still feel I have a long way to go. I want to do different kinds of films. There are many dream directors I want to work with. There’s a lot to say as an actor and performer. There’s still a lot more to happen for me to call it my best phase. When you feel like a newcomer, you are always more hungry. I always want to be that.”