'It's About Publicity, Not Talent Now,' Says Sunny Deol

Chandigarh: He has seen plenty of ups anddowns in a career spanning three decades and Sunny Deol saysthat in today's time an actor needs a good publicist, nottalent, to survive in the industry.

The National award winning actor said that a goodscript and story alone don't guarantee a film's success, themarketing has to be equally good.

"Earlier, there were days when one used to think thattalent speaks for itself. We never used to make appearances,give interviews and talk about our films. But today even ifyou have abundant talent, you will still need publicity orelse the talent will remain hidden from the people," the54-year-old actor told PTI.

Despite being a good film, he said said Right YaaaWrong failed at the box office because it was not widelypublicised.

"We analysed the reason behind it and probably we werepublicity shy. In my last film Yamla Pagla Deewana, which Idid with my father (veteran actor Dharmendra) and (brother)Bobby, we made sure it got the right publicity," he said.

The actor said that the present situation lent a lotof power to the media as they influence the audience'sdecision whether or not to watch a film.

"It is through media reports that most of the peopleform an opinion whether to watch a particular film ornot," said Deol.

At present, Deol is all set to revive his home bannerVijeta films with a sequel of his 1990 blockbuster Ghayal,which had won seven Filmfare awards.

In his long career, Deol has several other hitsincluding Damini (1993), Darr (1993), Border (1997) and Gadar:Ek Prem Katha (2001).