Filmmaker Apoorva Lakhia has revealed that producers refused to work with him after he cast Vivek Oberoi in Shootout at Lokhandwala. Even though, Vivek was touted as the next big thing with his earlier films like Saathiya, Company, Yuva and others, he was unofficially sidelined and boycotted by the Hindi film industry for a long period after he allegedly clashed with Salman Khan. Apoorva in a recent interview said that Vivek is a talented actor and that is why he hired him.
In a recent interview, Apoorva said, “At that time when I casted Vivek, a lot of producers called me and said ‘replace him or we won’t work with you.’ But I had given a commitment to Vivek, so how do you go back from a commitment? And Sanju sir supported me, Suniel Shetty supported me, Sanjay Gupta supported me. So if there guys are supporting me, I thought why should I think about the future? If Shootout became a hit, whoever rejected me will come back.”
He further said, “But Vivek was a good actor. Whatever he did was wrong, he shouldn’t have done it, but that does not mean he is not talented. I am hiring for his acting abilities. I am not hiring any person for his personality. He is a professional and he was really good when I was reading with him. I think he did a fantastic job.”
Vivek’s feud with Salman took a heavy toll on him professionally. He lost out on several plump projects and important people in the industry refused to stand by him or work with him. Vivek had given a TV channel interview in which he claimed that Salman called him 41 times and threatened him. This was done after Aishwarya Rai Bachchan broke up with Salman and had started dating Vivek. This incident impacted Vivek’s career adversely as people in the industry did not want to rub Salman the wrong way by supporting the former and hence kept their distance which resulted in Vivek’s career going downhill.
(Source: Siddharth Kannan)
