Bollywood’s Man of Steel — John Abraham is just that, both by his looks and his mental strength. As someone who has made it this far, without any connections, there are quite a few lessons one can learn from him.

Opening up on his thoughts about Bollywood as a place, the actor says, “As a whole, the industry has been very gracious and extremely good. Contrary to the way people are looking at it today, I think it’s a good place, it’s not that bad.”

Adding that bad things happen in every line of work, Abraham, 47, feels film industry is talked about more as it’s always in the limelight. “In our industry, it’s out there in open, and we get crucified a lot for it. Have I got opportunities from people who’ve been in the industry? Yes. Have I been the flag-bearer for taking people from outside the industry (in films I produced)? Yes. You can choose to create your own path,” he says.

With a career spanning 17 years, Abraham describes Bollywood as ‘very democratic’. “It’s the place where I feel we’re agnostic to religion. There’s a lot of negativity today in the industry, but I want to be the one person who people look out to and say ‘hey, no, this place is decent, look at him. He’s survived and standing here talking to us, he’s got nothing negative to say about anyone. If John Abraham can, we can’,” he signs off.