When Rishi Kapoor said he never got credit as an actor: ‘It’s my fault, what I did was only…’

Actor Rishi Kapoor made his acting debut with his father Raj Kapoor’s 1970 film Mera Naam Joker, for which he won the National Film Award for Best Child Artist. Three years later, in 1973 he bagged his first lead role opposite Dimple Kapadia in the teen romance Bobby. In an old interview, Rishi said that he never got film critics or audiences to like him as he only did romantic films for almost 25 years. Also Read: When Amitabh Bachchan, Dharmendra were scolded by Hrishikesh Mukherjee: ‘If you had sense for the story, would you be hero?’

Rishi appeared in almost 92 romantic films as a lead from the 70s to the late 90s. Some of his notable romantic films are, Khel Khel Mein (1975), Kabhi Kabhie (1976), Sargam (1979), Karz (1980), Prem Rog (1982), Chandni (1989), and Deewana (1992).

In a 2018 interview with Bollywood MDB, Rishi said, “I never got the critics and audience to like me by doing something different. I was only romancing the heroines, running around the trees, singing songs in Ooty, Kashmir, and Switzerland. I was only wearing jerseys, they used to call me sweater man all over the world, and I never got roles, never got characters to play, whereas my contemporaries, they got all kinds of roles to play.”

He added, “I am not complaining that I did 25 years of romance at a stretch; I may not be the biggest star of the country. But I was always among the first 5 stars of this country. I am very happy that I lasted for 25 years. I never got credit as an actor and it’s my fault, I never gave my audiences the reason to like me, what I did was only sing songs.”

Rishi was diagnosed with leukemia in 2018 and went to New York City for treatment. After a two-year battle with the disease, Rishi died in April 2020 at the age of 68. At the time of his death, Rishi’s last film, Hitesh Bhatia’s Sharmaji Namkeen was under production and a four-day schedule was pending at the time. Later, actor Paresh Rawal completed Rishi’s unfinished portions of the film and it got released in March 2022.