Veteran act0r Dharmendra has often talked about protecting his kids from the film industry, even infamously getting angry at daughter Esha Deol making her Bollywood debut. It’s ironical then that three of his four kids went on to become lead actors — Sunny Deol, Bobby Deol, and Esha. In a new interview, Bobby recalled how their father always tried to keep him at a distance from the film industry.
“Whenever there was a star kid’s birthday, papa would never let me go. I tell him now that you shouldn’t have done that. But at that time, I felt it was a big deal. But then it became a habit and I didn’t think too much of it. Papa never wanted us to mingle with the film industry because film industry bahut banawati hai. Toh wo chahte the ki humey banawatipan se door rakhe (film industry is very fake. So he wanted us to keep distance from anything fake),” said Bobby.
He also said in the interview with Instant Bollywood, “We never had an environment like the film industry. We had a simple household. We’d never have parties at home or talk about films. We lived like normal people. We were never influenced by the film industry. I just witnessed that my father got a lot of love. Whether I’d go on a set or see people crowd up outside home, I’d always be surprised by that phenomenon. Why is my father getting so much love?”
Bobby said that he’d often visit his father’s set because he wanted to bunk school. “I used to with my dad to set not because I wanted to see the shoot, but because I wanted to eat good food. I wanted to bunk school. I’d come to my father in the morning and ask him if I can come along because I didn’t want to go to school, so he’d say, ‘Okay, come along.’ Then I’d get a scolding from my mother in the evening. Had there been mobile phones then, my mother would’ve called my dad and ask him to send me to school (laughs),” said Bobby.
Bobby’s elder brother Sunny Deol made his acting debut with Rahul Rawail’s 1983 romance Betaab. Bobby followed soon after with Rajkumar Santoshi’s 1995 romantic action film Barsaat. The next decade, Esha debuted with Vinay Shukla’s 2002 romance thriller Koi Mere Dil Se Poochhe. Sunny’s sons Karan Deol and Rajvir Deol have also entered the film industry as actors in Sunny’s 2019 directorial Pal Pal Dil Ke Paas and Avnish Barjatya’s 2023 romance Dono. Now, Bobby’s sons Aryaman and Dharam Deol will soon make their acting debuts as well.
