Actor-MP Ravi Kishan recently revealed that he did not find easy acceptance in the Hindi film industry — which was what nudged him towards Bhojpuri films. He says, “I was there, thinking that one fine day my sunrise will also come. In the 1990s, Akshay Kumar and all these friends of ours had come (sic). I am from the ’90s lot too. I thought, I am also six feet tall, I have a good voice, a body, but I didn’t get work. I did Army (1996) and Tere Naam (2003)... in addition to several films with Mithun Chakraborty, Dharmendra, but I was not getting a hit.”

However, talking to Brut India, he says he didn’t let himself get bogged down: “One fine day, I realized… And in anger and hurt, started my own industry, the Bhojpuri industry. I made myself a superstar there. The country’s audience supported me. And today, one lakh people have found employment in that industry.”

He reveals, “I got Rs. 75,000 for a film, out of which Rs. 25,000 I put in action. Whatever I learned from the Hindi film industry, all that training and thought I put into that (the Bhojpuri industry). So people thought that they have got a young hero of their own.”