Bawaal starring Varun Dhawan and Janhvi Kapoor released on Prime Video on July 21. Helmed by Nitesh Tiwari, the film has opened to mixed reviews. The actress recently sat down for a conversation to talk about several aspects of the film industry. During the same chat, she talked about the PR game and how important it has become to do self-promotions in order to remain relevant in the industry.
In a recent conversation with Pinkvilla, Janhvi Kapoor spoke about the pressure of staying relevant in the industry and the PR strategies. She said, “I’ve been told there’s a major lack of PR on my part. But, you know, I have noticed in these past five years, so many people after a film releases the conversations always along the lines of ‘there’s no such thing as a bad film, it's only bad marketing.’ ‘Arre aise promote karna chahiye tha’ (You must have promoted your film this way).”
She added, “I think that there’s an intrinsic fear when you are in an industry or in an environment where everyone kind of has, you know those speaker phones and everybody is shouting to do this and do that, and you are scared that if I’m the only quite one, would anyone even notice. But I think it takes a lot of courage to stick to your guns and be like no, my work is enough. I think that takes a lot and it’s very daunting. And most times we can’t follow through with it and I know that I have wavered.”
“I think it's interesting to observe how the conversation is always marketing and PR driven and not so much that think about your films choices or may be this or may be that as oppose to ‘Aree thoda zyada naach leti toh shayad achha kar leti,” Janhvi further added.
During the same chat, when Varun Dhawan asked Janhvi about the most ‘insecure’ thing she has done for movie promotions, she said, “So I did this film called Mili and I got a lot of great reviews and appreciation for my performance, but it didn’t perform well at all at the box office. So, I was being told to take what you can from it and then they made these creatives of people saying a lot of positive things about just the performance. They (makers) were like okay, let’s plaster this everywhere so that people forget that it (Mili) only earned like negligible amounts of money at the box office. You know the good reviews, which is great and makes complete logical sense. It’s not even like we are lying, it's the truth. I think…to get your brain to work in that way is like a 10 percent bikau (saleable) nature to what should be a sacred art form I think.”
Meanwhile, Janhvi Kapoor was seen alongside Varun Dhawan in Bawaal. The actress will next star in Mr and Mrs Mahi and Devara. ALSO READ: Varun Dhawan and Janhvi Kapoor starrer Bawaal becomes one of the most-viewed movies of the week!
