Mainstream is an abused word: Ayushmann Khurrana

Mumbai: Actor Ayushmann Khurrana, whose filmography is as versatile as it gets with a "Badhaai Ho" and "Andhadhun", says the world of cinema must not discriminate by bracketing content into mainstream and non-mainstream.

An actor who is against talent and content being labelled, Ayushmann will soon be seen in "Article 15", a content-driven film on the subject of discrimination itself.

"The validation that I have got with my back-to-back successes with 'Andhadhun', 'Badhaai Ho', 'Shubh Mangal Saavdhan' and 'Bareilly Ki Barfi' has driven me to stay on the path of giving audiences quality, entertaining cinema that they would want to come to the theatres to watch.

"To me, mainstream is an abused word. For me, mainstream cinema is every film that people simply love to watch because of reasons that are personal to them. The world has progressed to being anti-label, high time our industry too moves away from labelling audiences and films," he added.

He feels the way mainstream has been defined so far has been extremely skewed and discriminatory.

"Every film has its set of audience and not every film is meant to appeal to everyone. That's the beauty of films. It's subjective, it evokes an intimate and highly personal reaction and entertains like-minded people," said the actor, who began his career with "Vicky Donor".

"Just because a film's appeal doesn't conform to what some would think as pan Indian, doesn't make it a non-mainstream film. One immediately judges films with a different sensibility and to me that's hugely discriminatory. I have fought this discrimination and will continue to do so all my career. Thankfully, my content choices have worked and proved that there is an audience for every kind of film.

"We shouldn't see filmmaking through just one filter of it being a pan India mass entertainer. We take the meaning and beauty out of making films by doing this. It is a medium of bold creative expressions and we should celebrate everyone's work and be inclusive about ideas and opinions. Every film has a different purpose and it's great to have powerful and different voices and ideas."