Prem Chopra recalls daughter’s honest complaint about his negative roles: 'Ganda kaam karte ho aap'

Prem Chopra’s villain image has followed him for nearly sixty years, and it even once confused his own child. The veteran actor recently remembered how his daughter bluntly told him, “Ganda kaam karte ho aap” (You do bad work), after classmates teased her about his on-screen crimes.

A schoolgirl’s blunt review of her father

A year ago on Arbaaz Khan’s talk show ‘The Invincible’, which highlighted his long career as a Hindi film antagonist, Chopra recalled the incident from her school days. He said, “Yeh Ritika Nanda ne, who is a writer also. School mein the woh toh kahte hai papa sab log mujhse kahte hai school mein bolte hai bahut gadbad wale role karte hai. Ganda kaam karte ho aap, yeh chor do” (This was Ritika Nanda, who is also a writer. She was in school and said Papa everyone at school tells me you do very wrong roles.

You do bad things, please stop this).Chopra shared that he gently explained the reality behind the frightening persona. The audience might know him as the man who plotted kidnappings and murders on screen, but at home he was simply a working father. He told his daughter that people had accepted him in such roles and that because of these roles, he could afford to send her to a good school and provide a comfortable life. It was, he stressed, a profession.

How Sharman Joshi saw the screen villain

The actor also laughed about how his fearsome image affected his future son-in-law, Sharman Joshi. Sharman married Chopra’s daughter Prerana and admitted that he grew up wary of approaching the daughter of such a famous 90s villain. Joking about their love story, Sharman once said, “I think Prerna was destined to have someone as wonderful as me in her life, she lucked out. She got married to me but mujhe Prem ji ke nightmares aate the” (I used to get nightmares of Prem ji).Sharman eventually discovered the gentle man behind the stern characters. He realized that Prem Chopra was actually chilled-out, while Prerana’s mother was the stricter parent. Remembering an early conversation with his future father-in-law, Sharman added, “Phir he asked ki agar nahi ban paaye, to maine bol diya ki ‘failed actor banunga’” (Then he asked what if you do not make it, so I said I will become a failed actor).