"Mani Ratnam always inspires you not only by his work but also the kind of work he takes out of you. I was not confident when he offered me Lallan Singh's role in 'Yuva' but I will always respect Mani for having confidence in me - which I didn't have in myself at that time."

Playing the other lead roles in the film are Aishwarya Rai, R. Madhavan, Vidya Balan and Mithun Chakrobarty.

Before making it big with "Yuva" Abhishek had a string of flops. Did he ever felt like giving up?

"I come from a family which doesn't believe in giving up. But yes, at one point of time I wasn't sure about myself. I went to my father and asked him: 'Have I made a mistake?'

"When you are being criticised, you take it seriously and try to improve your bad points as I did, but when you fail again, it is certainly disheartening."

Asked which film he rated as his best, Abhishek said that none of them fitted the bill so far. "I hope 'Guru' fills that space," he remarked.

On the constant media focus on his private life, he said that he didn't mind media speculations but he couldn't share his private life with anybody.

"Public figures or celebrities enjoy publicity. If you have problems with media scrutiny, you shouldn't become a celebrity. But what a celebrity doesn't like is sharing his or her personal life because that's the only thing which they can call 'mine'.

"And I don't think the general public is interested in celebrities' personal lives. They are forced to take interest. The audience is only interested in the character a hero plays.

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