Sajid Khan Feels Anyone Can Do A Film Now: ‘Hero Bahut Kam Bache Hai Apne Paas'

News18

11-05-2025

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Sajid Khan lamented Bollywood's decline in true "heroes" like Amitabh Bachchan and Dharmendra, praising South Indian cinema for maintaining the hero concept.
Sajid Khan is feeling a little nostalgic, and maybe a bit disappointed, about where Bollywood is heading these days. In a candid chat with Bharti Singh and Haarsh Limbachiyaa on their YouTube channel Bharti TV, Sajid opened up about how the idea of a 'hero" has pretty much faded from Hindi films.
He said it like it is: 'Hero bahut kam bache hain apne paas. There are no heroes in today's time. There are leads." For him, the actors we used to admire, the ones who carried a certain weight, style, and responsibility on screen, have now been replaced by just actors doing lead roles.
Sajid took us back to the days of Amitabh Bachchan, Dharmendra, Vinod Khanna, and Mithun Chakraborty. Those were the real Bollywood heroes, he believes. Now, things have changed to the point where 'Nowadays, anyone can do a film because the value of a hero has diminished."
Sajid feels that down South, the idea of a hero still matters. Their heroes get grand entry scenes, big moments, and most importantly, they have to be morally clean in the story. That's still respected there. As he put it, 'The ones who used to be heroes are now just leads."
And he made a great observation too: 'The term 'super-lead' doesn't exist, but the word 'superhero' does," pointing to the kind of aura true heroes used to have.
Sajid Khan took a trip down memory lane as he spoke about how things have changed in the film industry. He pointed out that back in the day, actors didn't need six-pack abs or gym-built bodies to leave an impression. Stars like Vinod Khanna and Amitabh Bachchan, he said, weren't ripped — but their expressions, that fire in their eyes, did all the talking.
He credited Salman Khan for kickstarting the gym craze in Bollywood after Maine Pyaar Kiya, calling it the point where having a sculpted body became the new norm. But Sajid made it clear that muscles alone don't define a hero. What really matters, he said, is the intensity in an actor's eyes.
To explain further, Sajid talked about Ranbir Kapoor in Animal. Even without the bulked-up look, Sajid feels Ranbir would've made just as big an impact — because the emotion in his eyes was so strong. He also mentioned Sunny Deol in Gadar 2, saying that Sunny didn't have a gym body, but still looked powerful and believable on screen. '
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