Ranbir Kapoor spoke at a session titled Tribute to Legendary Filmmakers Raj Kapoor and Guru Dutt, during the Celebrate Cinema 2025 festival at filmmaker Subhash Ghai’s film institute. During the interaction, the actor, who is the fourth generation of the illustrious Kapoor family, called himself a “product of nepotism”. He said, “I’m a product of nepotism and I got it very easy in my life, but I always had to work hard because I realised that I come from a family like this and if I don’t have an individualistic approach and if I don’t make a name for myself, I’ll not succeed in the film industry.”

​The Rockstar actor shared how early in life he learnt what goes behind making a film – the hard work and the collaborative efforts of a huge team. “You guys celebrate the success of my family, but there are failures also, and as much as you learn from the success, you learn from the failure, too. What do I feel about being born in this family? For me, it was like any other normal family, I didn’t know any better,” explained Ranbir.

Talking about how he grew up watching music directors, singers and lyricists come to his house to create songs for grandfather Raj Kapoor’s movies, he said, “There used to be a lot of arguments, but not of the domestic kind. They’d debate over a scene or the correct lyrics of a song.”

Recalling the words of his great-grandfather, Prithviraj Kapoor, he said, “Filmmaking is not dictatorship, it’s a marriage of so many people and artistes coming together, and believing in something, and believing in inspiring people.”

Speaking about his approach to acting, Ranbir recounted his experiences of working as an assistant director on Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s 2005 movie Black. He made his debut with Bhansali’s Saawariya (2007), and will be seen in the director’s upcoming film Love & War.

“When I saw him (Bhansali) write scenes and saw the actors perform, I studied them. I was not trying to ape them, but I’d ask myself how I would approach the scene. But once you become a working professional and start acting in movies, every film is different, and there’s no fixed method. As actors, you have to be malleable. You can’t say I work only in this way. Every filmmaker has a different way of telling a story, and filmmaking is a director’s medium. If a director wants it a certain way, then it’s your job as an actor to fulfil that,” he advised budding actors and directors in the auditorium, and added, “We are not selling the world, we are providing entertainment. So, do it to the best of your ability and don’t get stuck with one method.”