Karan Johar calls out 'beyond deluded' young actors who are charging upto Rs. 30 crores per film 'for no reason'

The pay disparity in Bollywood has often times been as controversial a subject as nepotism in Bollywood. While several actors have spoken about facing bias from producers time and again, Dharma Productions Chief Karan Johar has in a recent interview said that he’s ‘fed up’ seeing the prices of the actors going up even in the worst phase of cinema for no reason.

Karan sat down for a producers’ roundtable with Zoya Akhtar , Reema Kagti, Nikkhil Advani, Sameer Nair for Film Companion where Anupama Chopra asked how with the grim looking numbers of Bollywood during the two years of the pandemic have actors managed to hike their fee.

The filmmaker called these actors ‘beyond deluded’ for charging Rs. 20 to Rs. 30 crroes without having proved their worth at the box office and riding on the digital wave. Zoya Akhtar added to Karan’s point saying that the disparity between the pay of the technical crew and the actors is ‘offensive’

The group also discussed the payments of A-listers who they can strike profit sharing deals with given their bankability but also spoke about a younger order of stars who have raised their fee by a hundred percent during the pandemic for reasons unknown.

Venting against such stars Karan said, "There is a younger order that is yet to prove their muscle at the box office. They’re asking for Rs 20 or 30 crores. For no reason. Then you want to show a report card to them and say, that hello, this is what your film opened to."

Asked if it is not possible to talk these stars down and negotiate an acceptable fee by even a production house like Dharma, Karan said, “You can have hard conversation, probably you can strike a better deal than maybe another production house will but it is still not fair.”

Agreeing with Zoya’s point on pay disparity between the technical crew and filmstars he further added, “I would rather pay top dollar to members of the technical crew, who actually make the film special.”

In the conversation, it was discussed how when the top six or seven stars who guarantee footfalls in cinemas hike their fee, others below them begin crunching numbers and inflating their fee taking it as a benchmark. 

When Anupama exclaimed about the fees of the actors going up during the pandemic Karan added, “Every single person is charging more than they did two years ago. And not a ten percent rise, it is a hundred percent rise sometimes.”