Karan Johar, who also owns Dharma Cornerstone Artist Agency (DCAA), has said that talent management is a ‘thankless job’. In a recent interview, the filmmaker called the actor ‘insecure’ and explained how artists today keep moving on from one agency to another. Though KJo did not name anyone, he stated that “nobody is really loyal" in the showbiz world.
“Every two years, people are shifting from one agency to another because they are so insecure that they feel we are time-bound. Nobody is loyal in this business; actors just keep hopping and skipping. So you put two years of your life into a talent and they suddenly move somewhere else and then they don’t like it there and they want to come back to you. This is a vicious circle," Karan told Sarthak Ahuja, as quoted by SCREEN.
KJo went on to say that artist management is all about “handling people, egos, insecurities and it’s not easy." “If you look at talent management as a business opportunity, nothing is going to happen. After being in the business for 31 years, I have become zen about success and failure because I feel like my joy and sorrow cannot be the result of my success and failure, because then I will be in an ICU," he added.
Karan further claimed that it is difficult to make money by just artist associations and therefore, many agencies are now finding equity partnerships with their talent to monetise those partnerships. “Just commission on artists is going to give you nothing because artists are nobodies. They are absolutely nobodies, voh kisi ke nahi hain," he said.
It should be noted that Karan Johar’s comments come months after Janhvi Kapoor left his DCAA and moved to Collective Artist Network.
For now, Karan’s agency handles actors like Rohit Saraf, Sara Ali Khan, Shanaya Kapoor and Rasha Thadani, among others.
