Abhay Deol is making headlines after his recently released web series, Trial By Fire, received widespread praise. He’s been conducting interviews to promote the program, and one of the most recent was with the tabloid Mid-Day. In this lengthy interview with the tabloid’s entertainment editor Mayank Shekhar, he discussed not only Trial By Fire but also his family, being an insider and yet an outsider, his previous films, and much more. He also broke his silence on Anurag Kashyap‘s charges made almost two and a half years ago.
According to Bollywood Hungama, Anurag Kashyap revealed in a June 2020 interview with Huffington Post that working with Abhay Deol was “painfully difficult” and that he doesn’t even have fond memories of him. Anurag stated, “He wanted to do artistic movies but also wanted the mainstream benefits. The benefits and luxuries of being a ‘Deol.’ He would stay in a five-star hotel while the entire crew stayed in Paharganj for a film that was made on a very tight budget. Also the reason a lot of his directors went away from him.”
Abhay Deol confirmed that he never requested a five-star hotel room. He told, “Anurag went in public and told a lot of lies about me. One lie was that I demanded a [five-star] hotel room during the shoot of Dev D. He had actually come up to me and said, ‘Listen you can’t stay with us, you are a Deol. So, I want to put you up in a hotel room.’ He literally told me that. What he told the press was that I demanded it.”
Abhay Deol said angrily, “I had my heart on my sleeve, and all that is great — but you get taken advantage of, and then you get reactive. So, he (Kashyap) was a good lesson for me. Then I just avoided him, because I don’t need toxic people in my life. Life is too short, and there is so much more to explore. But he (Kashyap) is definitely a liar and a toxic person. And I would warn people about him.”
Abhay Deol then said that when Anurag Kashyap “said that crap” about him, Anurag Kashyap sent him apology texts, then Abhay Deol stated, “He does that all the time. He was like, ‘You want to shout at me, scream at me…’ And I was like, ‘I don’t care. It’s been 12 years. You don’t feature in my thoughts even now; get over it.’ He said, ‘Forgive me because I have had a bad day.’ I said you are forgiven. I never had a personal agenda. It was far bigger than just me. That is how I feel about everything. How much of this is he going to do? And I would have never taken his name and said the things had he not gone public either.”
In an exclusive interview with Bollywood Hungama last year, Abhay Deol was asked to characterize some of the celebs during a rapid-fire round. When asked about Anurag Kashyap, he referred to him as a ‘gaslighter.’ Abhay said he didn’t like marketing himself since he wanted his films to speak for themselves. However, several filmmakers had doubts about it, so he was ‘gaslighted’ into believing that he didn’t care for his works.