Faridoon Shahryar (FS): Zubaani daave to bahut log karte rahte hain. Junoon ke kaam ko karke dikhaana hota hai. Well, when it comes to Amitabh Bachchan, junoon ke kaam ko woh karte hai aur karte rahenge inshallah because there’s only one Amitabh Bachchan and there can be no one like him. Huge honour to have you back on Bollywood Hungama, sir!
Amitabh Bachchan (AB): Thank you so much for having me.
FS: You recently shot for ‘Bol Bachchan’ and you seem excited for it. The scene from ‘Amar Akbar Anthony’ wherein you are coming out of the Easter egg has been re-created. That must have been something! Could you tell us something about it?
AB: Ajay (Devgn) is like family and I’ve known Rohit (Shetty) for quite a while. His father and I worked together in so many films. Abhishek (Bachchan) was working in ‘Bol Bachchan’ as well. One day, they came and said that they want to do a title song which has been put together by Himesh Reshammiya. They wanted me to sing and act in it and I just said ‘Okay, fine’. It is in a sense a song that encapsulates the entire story or gives an idea of what the story is going to be, what the characters are, how it’s going to shape up etc through my voice. It was a lot of fun. A lot of things that we did were reminiscence of ‘Amar Akbar Anthony’ but it’s all done in good humour. We had a great time performing and I just finished shooting yesterday. We were very happy about (the song).
FS: A lot of remakes are being made. ‘Don’ and ‘Agneepath’ have been made and then there’s ‘Satte Pe Satta’ coming up. Remake of ‘Muqaddar Ka Sikandar’, ‘Laawaris’, ‘Namak Halaal’, ‘Sharaabi’ and ‘Amar Akbar Anthony’ are in the pipeline as well. Since all these are your films, does it flatter you? You have said in that past that remakes are something you are not comfortable with…
AB: An original is an original and one would hope that it would be maintained. But if the producer has the rights of that product and he wants to remake it with the present generation, there’s nothing you could do about it and there’s no harm in that. Hence, a lot of remakes are being made. But I do feel that an original should be left as an original. Some of the classics have always been remade like, for example, ‘Devdas’. And then you find that each generation identifies with that particular ‘Devdas’. My generation would identify with Dilipsaab’s ‘Devdas’. Generation much before me would identify with K L Saigal’s ‘Devdas’. Perhaps, the modern generation would identify with Shahrukh’s ‘Devdas’. So I think it’s something that works generationally.
FS: Who do you think is the best actor ever in the Indian film industry?
AB: Well to me, Dilipsaab. I’ve never really looked beyond that because he’s been my idol and I’ve watched every one of his works. I always feel that whenever the history of Indian Cinema will be written, it will always have a ‘before Dilip Kumar’ and ‘after Dilip Kumar’! That’s almost like a yardstick. He has been phenomenal. My greatest regret, though, was that Ganga Jamuna, which I feel is his best work, and he never got an award for that. Sometimes you also feel that you deserved an award but you didn’t get it. And then you console yourself by the fact that if Dilip Kumar couldn’t get it for Ganga Jamuna, who are you?!
FS: A book has recently come out ‘Bollywood Top 20’ and obviously you are featuring in that. And the book says that during the 1970s, on an average and for 10 years, you had 5 films in a year. That has never been done by any actor ever in the Hindi film industry. Can we call you a ‘karmayogi’ or who’s relentlessly kept on doing one thing or the other?
AB: I’ve never looked at this statistics and they have never meant that important to me. We were all very keen to get work. And I still feel that if I don’t have work, I am insecure. So yes, I would like to keep working and if my body responds well, I would like to carry on. I never realized of these statistics you talk of. At that time, the situation as far as industry is concerned was different. We worked in almost 15-20 films almost at the same time. So it was natural that 4 or 5 of them would come out every year. And that was due to the disproportionate way of finances that went with the film. Producers borrowed money from distributors and financers at very heavy cost. They made 4 or 5 reels, shot all the exciting portions, went back to them, showed the reels, and proved their credibility before they got their next installment! This used to take a lot of time and artists used to be sitting vacantly. So what do you do? You take up another film. This practice went on for quite a while till it became so bad that all of us were working 2-3 shifts everyday on 3 different films.
for remaining interview in video, visit my blog
https://faridoonshahryar.blogspot.in/
