Filmmaker Atlee, who is gearing up for the release of his next, titled Baby John, starring Varun Dhawan in the lead, appeared on The Great Indian Kapil Show on Saturday. During a segment, netizens felt that host Kapil Sharma tried to insult the director for his looks, however, Atlee’s gave a befitting reply to him, and with that, he also won over the internet.
A video clip from the episode has now gone viral on the internet in which Kapil can be heard asking Atlee, “Has it ever happened that you went to meet a star and they didn’t recognise you? Have they asked where is Atlee?”
While Atlee looked a bit taken aback by the question at first, he went on to reply, “Sir, in a way I understood your question. I’ll try to answer. I am very thankful to AR Murugadoss sir because he produced my first film. He asked for the script, but he didn’t see how I am looking and whether I am capable of it or not, but he loved my narration.”
“World should see that. We should not judge by appearance, we should judge by the heart,” Atlee added, and the audience was seen breaking into a thunderous applause over his response.
Netizens slammed Kapil for the question and for trying to put down the filmmaker. “Kapil’s ‘humour’ is taking personal potshots at anyone in the audience or not very high profile guests. Not funny (sic),” an X user wrote, while another stated, “Maybe be his intention was not that but then he should have framed the question in much much better way. But all in all he is a champion of body shaming so not surprising at all (sic).”
Meanwhile, Atlee is set to deliver his second venture in Bollywood, after stepping a firm foot in the Hindi film industry with Shah Rukh Khan’s Jawan in 2023. The film shattered all records at the box office and became one of the highest grossing films of Indian cinema with over Rs 1000 crore collection.
Baby John, which is scheduled to release on December 25, is an adaptation of Atlee’s own Tamil film, Theri, that starred Thalapathy Vijay. While Varun plays the lead in Baby John, it also features Wamiqa Gabbi, Keethy Suresh and Jackie Shroff in key roles.
