Back in the 90s and early 2000s, actor Johnny Lever used to appear as a comic relief is nearly every other superhit film and his funny acts had a fanbase of their own. However, the actor seems to have faded away from silver screen now and in a recent media interaction, he opened about why he doesn't like working in films anymore.

Johnny told ETimes, “I turn down work because the writing is bad these days. You speak of Baazigar… That film had no writer, it was just me. I came up with all the punches. Those were good days, we used to work hard. But these days, we don’t have (comedy) writers. It’s like, ‘Johnny bhai will handle it’. That’s not how it works. We need a blueprint first.”

Sharing how the idea of comedy has changed in current times, the actor stated, “Comedy was given respect back in the day. These days, there’s hardly any comedy in movies. Back in the day, I used to get such a positive response, my scenes would become the highlight of the movie. Sometimes, the heroes would feel threatened and my scenes would be edited. They used to watch how the audience would react to my scenes, and feel insecure. They started asking writers to come up with comedy scenes for them, as well. The writers would start distributing comedy scenes. And my roles became smaller and smaller, which is what you’re seeing now. Comedy is gone.”

Johnny concluded by saying that since all the characters in movies are funny to some degree, there is no need for comic relief in today's cinema.