Amitabh Bachchan may leave many tongue tied with his acting abilities but not Mahesh Manjrekar.
Amitabh Bachchan may leave many tongue tied with his acting abilities but not Mahesh Manjrekar. The Natsamrat director says he is not surprised by Amitabh’s acting anymore. Mahesh was speaking with Indian Express.com after delivering a masterclass session at Whistling Woods where Mahesh and Nana Patekar shared their experiences with film students.
The conversation veered towards Amitabh when we asked Mahesh if he had any plans of making his critically acclaimed movie Natsamrat in Hindi. Answering in negative, Mahesh reasoned, “Not now. I am too saturated to revisit it again. May be after five years I will think of making it again. I can’t do anything more right now. If I try and make it in Hindi, I will end up making an exact replica and in that case as a director I will be a loser. Also then the question comes which actor could be most suitable for the film. Naturally a name comes which is Amitabh Bachchan who I don’t want him because he is not going to surprise me anymore.”
When we asked why Big B has ceased to surpise him, Mahesh answered, “Amitabh doesn’t surprise me because he has been there, done that. Aur kya karenge? He has given more than 200 different performances. I directed him in a film called Viruddh and I would say that is his best performance till date. I didn’t want him to do his trademark ‘hain’ in the film and I told him that. When he asked me why, I told him that the ‘hain’ was Amitabh Bachchan and I don’t want Amitabh Bachchan in my film. So if you notice, nowhere in the film has he uttered ‘hain’. So today the question is will I be able to remove Amitabh Bachchan from him. The day I feel I can do that I will do a film with him.”
