I couldn’t accept the rejection, says Uday Chopra

He’s young, good looking, had a wonderful debut in big budget multi-starrer like Mohabbatein and has a father who is arguably the most powerful film producer in Bollywood today. But life still hasn’t been a bed of roses all the way for Uday Chopra. It’s been three years since his ambitious solo lead — Neal N Nikki — with then girlfriend Tanishaa Mukherjee did a Titanic on him. And he’s hasn’t been the same since, battling demons too personal to even share with his family. It’s only now that he feels ready to reveal the pain of that dark period in his life.

“After my film Neil N Nikki wasn’t a success, I went into a very low phase and decided to take time off from everything. I was not feeling creative at all. I was not feeling like getting out there and doing something. What affected me the most was that my career did not take off the way I had visualised it. I don’t go to anyone (father Yash Chopra or brother Aditya) when I’m down. I’m quite a loner. I like to deal with things myself. I go into a shell introspect and then come out of it,” Uday told DNA.

The film’s terrible run at the box office cut into his very self belief, sending him into a depression so severe that it almost went out of control. “Everyone who enters Bollywood has dreams. I won’t lie — I wanted to be number one too, but things did not work out. I faced rejection from the audience and I just couldn’t accept it. I went into denial, refusing to beleive that this could be happening...but then reality hit me hard. In these two years, all the froth and rubbish has come out of me. I now know who I am and what my limitations are. It’s been a cathartic process.”

It was a trying period in other ways as well. The fairytale romance with Kajol’s sister Tanishaa which blossomed on the sets of Neal N Nikki — which many felt would sooner or later lead them to the altar — also reached an abrupt dead end. Today, he seems content keeping love on the back burner, despite his parents nudging him to marry and settle down. “I think my parents have given up hope,” he smiles wryly. “I’m single now and I have a very twisted view on love and marriage. I don’t think there’s any particular age to marry. You have to wait till you find the woman you feel you want to spend the rest of your life with...”

If there’s any love affair he’s still keen about, it’s with films. “I did movies because I loved them, not because my father and brother were making films. I love the fact that I am a part of this industry and that I can act,” he says.

Now finally, Uday has found the strength to pick up the pieces and try again. “I was in a depressed state for a long time, about two years actually, until one fine day I thought I should try writing and I wrote Pyaar Impossible. The movie is a love story between this super hot girl and a complete geek (played by Uday). The casting was critical. We brainstormed whether people can believe a superstar like Priyanka Chopra can actually get hooked up with someone like an Uday Chopra? That’s how we finalised her.”

Never mind the title of his film, here’s hoping that things click for him this time around, and impossible is no longer a word Uday will care much for, either in his films or otherwise.