‘Films fail only because of their prices’

Jyothi Venkatesh chats up Amitabh Bachchan, who is back
with his latest film Bbuddhah Hoga Terra Baap

Tell me about Bbuddhah Hoga Terra Baap!

I liked the role when director Puri Jagannadh narrated the subject to me. He was an associate of Ram Gopal. It was Ram Gopal Varma, who recommended Puri to me. I had seen Puri’s Pokkiri; the Telugu original of the Hindi hit Wanted. I had liked Puri’s work. In fact, the subject was so endearing that I actually told Puri that I wanted to produce the film under my banner AB Corps. I play the role of Viju, an ex-gangster, who is very edgy and arrogant but extremely flamboyant. Viju is brought back to India from Paris where he runs a pub, on a special mission. I think it is a role which is in keeping with my current age. I am nearing 70 now.

Puri is a popular director in southern India. He has directed quite a few Telugu films, which have turned out to be big hits at the boxoffice. Since Puri confessed to me that he is an ardent fan of mine, sometimes it was quite awkward for me on the sets. Puri’s brief to me was that I should look as colourful as possible because mine is a flamboyant role. I have also contributed my little bit to the character, adding to Puri’s inputs, to enhance my character.

Bbuddhah Hoga Terra Baap is the kind of film that any other producer would have gladly come forward to produce had I not made the offer to Puri to produce it. The USP of my film is that it is clean family entertainer. Though the trend today is to use expletives and shoot explicit scenes, there is nothing like that in my film. All my life, as an actor, I have never used expletives or shot for any explicit scene my films because I am just not comfortable doing them.

It was definitely a big challenge because Puri wanted me to do at 69, all that I used to do at 25. Though I am not as young as I was then, you will be able to see a little bit of the kind of the angry young man roles that I used to play earlier, mouthing some of my popular dialogues from some of my successful films.

Yes. Though I should confess that I do not consider myself a singer at all, I have sung a medley of my successful numbers in the film. I should say that it happened just by accident. Two years ago, when I was doing stage shows with Vishal and Shekhar and had two days off, we went to a restaurant for lunch. I liked the music which was being played in that restaurant. I asked the manager if I could get a disc of that particular song. I felt I could sing a "Khaike Paan Banaraswala" with that tune and we hired a studio there and recorded the number and played it in our concert. It was a great success. When I made Puri listen to the disc, he asked me to go back to a studio and record the medley for our film.

Trade pundits have already declared Bbuddhah Hoga Terra Baap a hit!

That is because I told Puri that I would like to make the film on a budget of just 10 cr and he has made it that way. The satellite rights have already fetched us around 14 cr. I have always maintained that films fail only because of their prices.

I know that there are plans to make remakes of films like Chupke Chupke, Satte Pe Satta, Amar Akbar Anthony. We at A B Corp have no plans to go in for remakes because, besides me, even Abhishek feels that the evergreen originals should be left alone and not at all tampered with.

There was a generation which simply loved Kundan Lal Saigal when he played the forlorn lover in Devdas. Then there was yet another generation like that of us who simply were hooked on to Dilip Kumar essaying the role of Devdas made by Bimal Roy. Though let me confess that in my eyes, Dilip Kumar was the ultimate Devdas, you just cannot deny or ignore the fact that today’s generation feels that`A0Shah Rukh Khan is the ultimate Devdas, because they have watched Shah Rukh Khan essay the role of Devdas in Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Devdas.

I would not agree that I am the first actor to project the image of the angry young man on the Indian screen because there were actors who had played the angry young man even before I did in Zanjeer, like for example, Ullassaab and Yakubsaab, or for that matter even Sunil Duttsaab.

Editing cuts are far to less these days. Ab speed badh gayee hai. It has partly to do with the influx of television. It is considered bad if you hold a shot for more than three minutes on television. I have always believed that with times, you have to change and move on, or else you tend to stagnate.

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