Amitabh Bachchan Speaks On The Pleasures Of Helming The Cast  Of Jhund.

Amitabh Bachchan Speaks  To  Subhash  K Jha On  The Pleasures Of  Helming The Cast  Of Jhund.

Amitji, correct me  if I am wrong. But  Jhund gives  you a  rare opportunity  to play a  real-life character. How  different  is it for  you to play an actual character as  compared with  the  fictional ones?

Amitabh Bachchan: All projects are difficult , as are all characters when they are portrayed on screen. Vijay Barse was no different, particularly because he is a living character. But in such cases you go along with the director’s take on it .

The real  Vijay  Barse is an inspiring  figure  . Did you get  time  to meet him? Mr Barse, by the  way  , is  honoured and thrilled that the  greatest  star-actor  of  Indian  cinema has played him.

Amitabh Bachchan: Indeed Vijay Barse is an inspiring figure, and the honour is entirely mine to have got an opportunity to portray him. His realm of   ‘the greatest start-actor of Indian Cinema’ is an unrecognised epithet, which I have never believed in nor pay service to.
Directors  who  work with you for the first time–and there is no dearth  of them–are in awe of you. What  was  it like  working with Nagraj Manjule who once told me he used to wear  his shirt  in the Deewaar style, so enamoured  was  he  by your Livid Young Man Vijay’s persona?

These are embarrassing impressions for me. I was in awe of his work before he came to me for the film JHUND. And they that work with me are NOT in awe of me .. it’s the other way round  !

Speaking  of Vijay, from the Vijay that  you iconized in  Zanjeer to  the  Vijay in  Jhund,  you remain the  screen symbol  of  hope for  the  underdog . Do you agree?

Amitabh Bachchan:It has and shall ever be an enchantment when an underdog succeeds .This is a fact of life ! It responds to all . I am certainly NOT the screen symbol of the hope that stories spell out ; it is the writer and the director’s vision that brings it to the fore, not the actor .The actor merely tries to do justice to the job at hand .

The  slum boys  (and a few girls)  are absolute naturals on screen. Sir,  what  was  your interaction like with them?Please share  the  most memorable episodes of your shooting experience with these kids?

Amitabh Bachchan:They were all handpicked for the job, by Nagaraj ji and briefed for their respective roles. All of them are naturals, that came from the atmosphere you see in the film – the slums – and each of them has had the same kind of existence so succinctly portrayed. They spoke their own language, and what they felt the situation needed. Nothing was pre determined, and that was the beauty of their performance .They lived their lives on screen as they lived in their real distraught circumstances.

Did any one  of their stories particularly catch your  attention?

Amitabh Bachchan: Each story of theirs was an eye opener .Nagaraj ji tried to bring it out in one scene, and that was riveting and so very emotional. Emotion was a rarity for them, they knew very little of how to be emotional. In a scene where they were asked to have tears in their eyes, one of them came up to me and said ‘How does one cry ?’ .It was the most poignant moment for me . Consider the question , Subhash, and you will find several wonder responses to it , if at all you can. Either he has been through so much misery and pain that tears do not mean anything to him, or he has spent an entire early life with tears that he does not have any left.When you see suffering and pain in the young being reflected by a smile, it is the most unbearable emotion !

True. Jhund had to wait its turn to  make  it into the theatres post the pandemic. Would   you have preferred  it to come sooner on the  OTT platform? In your  opinion,how  vital  has  the  OTT platform become to  cinema in the past two years?

Amitabh Bachchan: This is best answered by the producers and the distributors and the Industry in general. When you come across a wall you cannot climb or cross, you find alternatives .

Aamir Khan was seen wiping tears while  praising  Jhund in a video. Your  reaction to that, Sir.

Humbled !

Finally  Abhishek is  a diehard football  fan. How  enamoured are  you  to the game?

When your team plays , the World around us pauses !