Exclusive | Shahid Kapoor on Why He Hasn't Signed Anything After 'Cocktail 2' and 'Farzi 2'

“I don’t know what I’m going to do after that,” says Shahid Kapoor, when asked about his plans post filming his upcoming movies, Cocktail 2 and Farzi 2. However, this uncertainty does not worry the actor. In fact, he encourages it.

In an exclusive conversation with The Hollywood Reporter India, he reveals why he's waiting, touching on the importance of keeping the audience satisfied, and why he feels the industry lacks original scripts.

While the actor has two major films, Cocktail 2 and Farzi 2, locked in for this year, he does not want to rush the process of choosing what's next, especially if it means compromising on what his audience expects of him.

“I don’t want to disappoint the audience. What hurts me the most is when they walk out of the theater unsatisfied,” he says. “I have failed at some level if the film didn’t land because maybe I didn’t make the right choice. I did a good job as an actor, but I didn’t make the right choice, and that took away from their experience,” he adds.

When the conversation shifts to there being a lack of good scripts — a brewing sentiment among many actors — Kapoor chooses to pose a preliminary question instead of fishing for an immediate answer. "Why has this phase come?" he questions, and then proceeds to answer thoughtfully: "We always want to talk about the problem, we don’t want to go to the root of it. To me, it came because we went through a phase where we were only making remakes and we were only making franchise movies, and I’m sure there were writers sitting out there with good content who got tired and just left," he says.

The actor also feels that the may have lost writers is because it didn't respect them enough for being original, and that social media is a major culprit.

"When you’re absorbing so much and consuming so much, eventually there's nothing original. It’s all consumption," he says. However, he feels that while the industry has come to a point where films oscillate between doing extremely well or the opposite, "It's a phase, and it'll pass. Focus on your craft. Focus on your job. Don't be in a rush," he advises.

Kapoor uses the same mentality as he thinks about what lies ahead of him. "I’m not in a rush. I have one thing that’s coming out and one thing that I’m in the process of finishing, so it gives me that time. I can’t sit at home either. I like to work, otherwise I lose a sense of identity. It’s a very big part of who I am. I’ve been doing it for too many years, so I think if I’m not on a set, who am I?"