Hrithik Roshan Emerged Stronger Calmer Happier

Hrithik Roshan’s professional success has often been offset by personal setbacks and injury. But the actor has found a way to stay unfazed: By focusing on family, films and fitness.

- Neeraj Gangal

Celebrity fitness trainer Mustafa Ahmed is used to clients requesting him to help them build a ripped body, like Brad Pitt’s, for instance. So when he started training Hrithik Roshan a year ago, he was taken aback by the actor’s fitness inspiration: Himself.

‘That is what we have to beat. There’s nobody else I need to look better than,” Hrithik told him pointing at his own photograph from when he was in prime physical shape.

“Not that he is arrogant, not that he thinks he has the best physique; he just wants to beat his own best,” Ahmed says, smiling. “Once he was on the parallel bars, doing a bar dip… he was down to his ninth or tenth repetition and remained stuck there. I screamed, ‘C’mon, HR, rise!’ I don’t know what happened to him, but he did four more reps after that.”

This ability to rebound—by digging deeper when the going gets tough—has stood Hrithik in good stead: At the gym and everywhere else. It is also the reason why his stature is no longer determined by box office results. Consider that the 43-year-old actor’s last and only outing in 2016, Mohenjo Daro, failed to win over audiences and critics alike. But even that couldn’t shake him from his place at No 10 on the 2016 Forbes India Celebrity 100 List.

The expectation now is that Hrithik will inevitably rise like a phoenix. By that logic, his January release Kaabil will be the beneficiary—in fact, by the time you read this, the verdict should have started coming in. The buzz has been positive. The trailer featuring him as a blind man taking on the might of evil has piqued interest, crossing 6 million views in just 24 hours of its release on Facebook.

There are no pre-release nerves evident, though, when ForbesLife India meets Hrithik.