Mumbai, August 07: The Bollywood star Amitabh Bachchan on Friday revealed that the climax of the classic movie “Sholay” was to be re-shot with his character Jai being resurrected.
The film was not doing well in the initial days of the release, so Salim Saab, Javed Saab and Rameshji were thinking to improve the film by getting me alive again as lot of people thought that the audience might not like me dying in the film.
“We thought of going back to Ram Nagar, shoot that sequence on Sunday, putting it out on Monday and see what happens. All units were called. I remember Rameshji was ringing up Madras and we were all set to leave and re-shoot the whole sequence. When Rameshji was leaving my place, he said ‘Let’s wait for another day before we leave for Bangalore’. And that was historic,” Bachchan added.
This Aug 15, it will be 35 years since “Sholay” was released and Big B wonders how could a film have a life so long.
“I am quite surprised that ‘Sholay’ had a life so long. When we were making it, I don’t think any of us realised that it was going to be that historic,” he said.
The actor says his memories of the film are still fresh and it seems like only yesterday when the film’s script was narrated to him.
“It seems like yesterday when Salim Saab and Javed Saab narrated the script to us. The film has a lot of memories for me particularly because I had just finished working in ‘Zanjeer’ by then. It was just fantastic to be working with Ramesh Sippy, Dharamji, Hemaji the only newcomer was Amzad bhai,” said Bachchan.
The senior Bachchan also reveals that during the shooting of ‘Sholay’, actress Jaya Bachchan was pregnant with her first child, Shweta.
“Jaya and I had been married just for a year and in fact she was expecting our first child during the making. There were some shots in ‘Sholay’, where you can actually see her working during the pregnancy,” remembers Bachchan.
—Agencies