When Amitabh Threatened To Walk Out Of Bhansali’s film!

Nowadays  Mr B is  completely taken up with Ranbir Kapoor. I remember he’s been praising  Ranbir  since  his debut in Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s  Saawariya when he had  exulted about  the debutant, “Ranbir is the storm. 

Sonam is the soft breeze. The narrative is almost like a Beethoven symphony, where the thunderous sound of the orchestra is always followed by the soft thin flute ,  a symbolic interpretation of gentle desire and overpowering destiny. Have you heard Beethoven’s symphony? There’s a loud orchestra followed by a thin flute sound…This was the genius composer’s interpretation of desire and destiny…The destiny loud and ominous, the desire soft and gentle. It’s like the two protagonists in Saawariya.”

Last year when Mr Bachchan  got a  chance to finally work with Ranbir  the senior actor said, “Without saying  much he   manages to say anything. His  face is God’s blessing. He  doesn’t seem  to make  any effort to convey  emotions whereas I’ve to constantly struggle to express myself, ask the director  to help me. He needs none of that,” says  Mr Bachchan.

Just working in Ayan  Mukerjee’s Bramhastra with Ranbir, said Mr B, is  a learning experience. “All his films have been a learning graph.I find it very unusual the way he  reacts. He doesn’t move any muscle and to convey so much feelings is a tough job. I always notice when he performs he  doesn’t do much. And it’s not just his  films, it’s even in his ads.

Mr Bachchan  went on to add that  he  envied  Ranbir’s effortless  acting. “Because I can’t do it.”

And to think  there was time when the hostilities between the Bachchans and Kapoor ran high. This was after  Abhishek broke up with Karisma Kapoor. Abhishek’s father  found it hard to forgive the Kapoors for hurting his son, so much so that he refused to  work with Kareena.

 I know  because I was at  the  centre of this cold war. I got Mr Bachchan to agree to  do Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Black. For the part of  Mr B’s deaf and mute student Sanjay wanted Kareena. Sanjay wondered, “Would he  work with her, considering?….”

The task of asking  Mr B was  given to me.

The answer was a flat no. “He can choose between her and me. If she is in it, I am not,” Mr B told me curtly.

 That  was the  first of many occasions when Kareena missed working with  Bhansali.