Amitabh wants to prove a point

Bollywood veteran stresses on the importance of respecting the audience’s tastes.

MUMBAI:

Veteran Bollywood megastar Amitabh Bachchan may be nearing his 70^th birthday but he hopes that his new action film will prove he still has what it takes to beat the bad guys.

The 68-year-old, best known for classics such as Sholay and Deewaar in the 1970s, plays a gangster in Buddha Hoga Tera Baap which hits screens on July 1.

Big B sings, dances and fights his way through the film in a similar way to his ‘angry young man’ characters of old. The only difference now, he jokes, is that he is just an “angry man”.

“It’s always difficult to do action at this age but thanks to technology in cinema, life has become much easier but still, you need your basic energy,” he said.

Buddha Hoga Tera Baap is co-produced by Bachchan’s own AB Corporation Limited (ABCL) at a reported cost of INR100 million. The company co-produced his 2009 film Paa, in which he played a child with a rapid-aging disease opposite his son, Abhishek.

‘Keep the audience in mind’

Meanwhile, in a separate interview, the megastar stresses the need to keep in sync with the tastes of youth, who constitute the bulk of the audience. He also adds that the youth will continue steering changes in content — from candyfloss romance dramas to dark comedies, hardcore action fights, and hard-hitting reality films.

“Indian cinema will change with every generation! When we came in the 1970s and 1980s, people, the old-timers, didn’t necessarily agree with what we did. They said, ‘What is this man like? In every film he has a frown on his face, bashing up people!’ They didn’t like it but the youngsters seemed to like it, and so we went ahead,” said Bachchan. “The modern generation now likes romantic and young films and films that show more stuff that is very prevalent in youth today.”

Although, the 68-year-old icon says he is happy with most of the changes, he still has reservations over the use of expletives and doing explicit scenes in films. “I am uncomfortable using expletives, I am uncomfortable doing explicit scenes and, therefore, I refrain from doing it. That’s my personal choice.”

The veteran admits that sometimes he doesn’t find the changes appealing, but it’s hard to ignore what the audience demands. “Sometimes we regret changes. I personally feel that the same kind of writing is not happening these days. I just feel that content is not as poetic or lyrical.”

No plans to slow down

The actor, who has starred in more than 150 films, says that work is what drives him, even at an age when most people would be slowing down. He has a role in the film Aarakshan — due to open in theatres August 12 — alongside Saif Ali Khan and Deepika Padukone, and has two other films in the pipeline.

One of his next projects is as host of a new series of the Indian version of the hit British game show “Who Wants to be a Millionaire?” which helped revive his fortunes with the public after a series of flops in the 1980s and 1990s.

WITH ADDITIONAL INFORMATION FROM AFP

Published in The Express Tribune, June 23^rd, 2011.