'I was a disaster,' said Chirag Paswan as he reflected on his acting career which made less than Rs 1 crore: 'The only good was Kangana Ranaut and I became good friends'

Not many are aware that before become a politician, Chirag Paswan was an actor. He did one film but it did not even manage to make Rs 1crore at the box office. Interestingly, it had him opposite Kangana Ranaut and both of them ended up becoming politicians. Now as they share a great friendship, their videos always go viral on the internet.

Paswan had once spoken about his flop acting career and said that the only good thing which came out of it was his friendship with Kangana. Directed by Tanveer Khan, ‘Miley Naa Miley Hum’ followed Chirag’s character (also named Chirag), an aspiring tennis player who falls for Anishka (Kangana), a model, despite parental opposition. The film also featured Kabir Bedi and Poonam Dhillon as his parents, along with Sagarika Ghatge, Neeru Bajwa, Dilip Tahil, and Suresh Menon.

The film had earned Rs 97 lakh at the global box office and Rs 77 lakhs in India. Reflecting on his short-lived acting journey, Chirag once said, “No one from my family has ever been to Bollywood. In a filmy way I can say, ‘Meri saat pushto ka film se koi naata nai raha’. I was the first generation who was trying to venture into it. But, very soon I realised that this is a disaster. Even before the country, I realised I am a disaster.

I just came to know that I wasn’t made for this (acting).”He further explained his struggle with the craft: “I have seen my father giving speeches, standing on the stage and talking impromptu and here they are giving me dialogues that’s written and I just have to say so much. They used to give a two-line dialogue to deliver and I used to speak for two pages and the makers used to be like, ‘you didn’t have to say so much’ and I have grown up seeing my dad speaking impromptu so I just assumed you can improvise dialogues and just say it.

I used to do that but very soon I realised I can’t mug up dialogues and put on such heavy makeup.”One lasting positive from the film, he said, was the bond he formed with Kangana. The two reunited in Parliament after both won their Lok Sabha seats. He had told Screen, “Only good thing that happened to me after trying my luck in acting is that Kangana and I became really good friends. That’s one good thing we carried from that time.

And I was really looking forward to meet Kangana in the Parliament because the past three years, I was so busy in my own life that I had lost my connection with her.

”A while ago, during an interaction with Indian express, Paswan had told The Indian Express, “I was working in Mumbai and I was pretty settled there. Had I given a few more years to Bollywood, I would have made a decent name for myself. The only reason I came to politics was that I had witnessed from close quarters how Biharis were treated in other parts of the country, how they were humiliated. The name Bihari itself was made into a gaali (cussword).

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