Randeep Hooda: I don’t give a damn about awards or recognition

Actor Randeep Hooda doesn’t crave for recognition or awards, instead, he treats his job as a “contractual work”, and focuses on what he can gain from his experiences.

“My job is just like anybody else. I’m in a contractual professional having contractual work. Every time you take up a contractual job, you’ve to fulfil it,” he says, while talking about the approach he follows towards his work.

“Apart from that job, there’s not much of an interaction with the so-called industry so to speak. I don’t crave or give a damn about the awards or recognition,” adds the actor.

So what is it that Hooda craves for? “The process of my work, my involvement and my ability is to give as much as I can on that particular day, and more every day. You learn as you grow in experience and age, like any other human being, getting a bit more empathy, (becoming) understanding of others,” confesses the 44-year-old.

For many, Bollywood is all about glamour and glitz. But not for Hooda, whose Australian accent helped him get his big ticket to showbiz in 2001 with Mira Nair’s Monsoon Wedding.

He says he never gave too much “weightage to fame”, because very early in his career, he realised that it’s transient.

“What matters is your work, and fame is a by-product of that. One shouldn’t be too mindful of the by-product, but be mindful about work in hand. It’s not a glamorous job, at least for me,” adds the actor, who faced a setback due to a string of flops following initial success, before bouncing back in the game with Once Upon a Time in Mumbaai in 2010.

Hooda feels while the pandemic might have changed the world in a drastic way, it has also helped him get a sense of normalcy back in his life.

“There are a lot of things which we can’t do out in the open. In that sense, masks in the COVID-19 era have helped us lead a much normal life because in masks, people don’t recognise you,” quips the Extraction (2020) star.

After his big outing with Salman Khan in Radhe: Your Most Wanted Bhai, he’ll be seen in action-packed web series, Inspector Avinash. “I worked on these projects amid the pandemic. So, the work goes on. Bhagwan bharose hi chalta hai sab, chalna padta hi hai,” he shares.