If you are a movie aficionado, or precisely put, a Sholay fan, then it’s commemoration time for sure.
On this day in 1975, the Ramesh Sippy-helmed film hit the screens with a lot of glitz and fanfare. Yes, it’s been 50 years since the classic was released.
For any journalist over the years, Sholay has thrown open a plethora of anecdotes to dwell upon, making way for inquisitive articles – be it on the casting, backdrop, and several behind-the-scenes tales that still hold clout with ardent movie lovers.
Yes, the casting part – never has any film flipped through so many options before deciding on the final combination – Gabbar, Thakur, Jai, Veeru and so on.
The ones who scraped through had the last laugh, but “I was offered Sholay too,” is the ubiquitous statement from stars who missed out for whatever reason may be.
Leading the pack would be Shotgun Shatrughan Sinha, who keeps bragging about how he declined the role of Jai, which eventually landed on his friend Amitabh Bachchan’s lap.
Sinha, in almost every interview in the past, harped on that episode, “On one hand I regret the decision but on the other hand I am happy for my friend who became the AMITABH BACHCHAN after Sholay.”
Guess what – even Shashi Kapoor was considered for Jai, but hectic commitments deprived him of being part of history.
Many wouldn’t know that the late Dilip Kumar was offered Thakur, but for some extraneous circumstances, he had to back out. However, unlike Sinha, he never went ballistic on his rejection. There are also stories that veteran actor Pran was also approached for Thakur, but to no avail.
The fact that Danny Denzongpa was Sippy and writer duo Salim-Javed’s first choice for Gabbar Singh (that finally went to Amjad Khan) is part of the folklore.
In fact, actors like Feroz Khan, Jeetendra and Asha Parekh were also offered plum roles, but that didn’t work.
In an interview with Spotboye, Danny said, “It was because of a prior commitment and my word of honour that I had to let go of Sholay. I had signed Feroz Khan’s Dharmatma before Sholay and the dates were given to Feroz Bhai. I knew the Gabbar character was fabulous but my conscience guided me to take the right decision.”
However, he doesn’t rue missing out when he says, “I have no regrets at all. If I had done Sholay, we would have missed seeing all the wonderful performances of a wonderful actor called Amjad Khan.”
Among all the characters in the cult film, arguably the one that ran away with all the kudos had to be the merciless Gabbar and guess what, even Sanjeev Kumar, who essayed the character of Thakur and Bachchan (Jai), were eager to slip into that role as mentioned by Javed Akhtar, one half of the writer duo.
“There was definitely something unique about Gabbar that had such versatile actors gunning for it,” Akhtar had said.
Even Dharmendra who as Veeru struck an indelible chemistry with Bachchan had said that he was offered both Thakur and Gabbar, but his eyes were set on Veeru since the character resonated with his real-life avatar.
However, rumour has it that Garam Dharam was himself interested in Thakur but he had to be convinced by the director to choose Veeru on the ground of his attempted romantic overtures to Hema Malini who played Basanti.
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Well, no wonder the makers had a tedious task of picking the cast after a ‘melee’ of permutations and combinations.
But finally, it was destiny yet Sholay among many other reasons would be remembered for the backstories especially the casting logjam. What say?
