Sholay: Amitabh Bachchan as Gabbar
10.08.2006 | Posted at 8:44 am by adminOne of Bollywood’s most popular villains, who mouthed some of Hindi cinema’s most memorable lines, is back.
‘Gabbar Singh’ will be up on screen again, but in a completely new avtaar in Ramgopal Varma Ke Sholay, an audacious remake of Ramesh Sippy’s enduring classic of the seventies.
This time, it’s superstar Amitabh Bachchan who will bring back the magic of Gabbar to the silver screen.
“It’s like life completing an entire circle. I loved the character of Gabbar when I first heard the script way back in the 1975. I pleaded and begged to Ramesh Sippy but he disagreed and got me to play Jai and Amjad Khan to play Gabbar. Amjad did a marvelous job, that’s historic and can’t be repeated,” says Bachchan.
The Jai of Ramesh Sippy’s Sholay who sang songs of undying friendship with Veeru, will now chase Ramgopal Varma’s Jai and Veeru, who’re being portrayed in the new film by Mohit Ahlawat and Ajay Devgan respectively.
But Varma also clarifies that the new Sholay will be his interpretation of the old story in a completely new set-up.
And that’s why the film’s title bears the ambitious prefix of the filmmaker’s own name - a fact the filmmaker is not in the least bit embarrassed about.
“I think it’s audacious. I think Sholay is an audacious film. Everything about it speaks about attitude. I take great pride in it,” he says.
The film went on the floors only three days ago and already the team associated with it is has begun to discover good omens, like the infection in Bachchan’s eyes, which the actor explains also happened before when he was shooting for Sarkaar, his first collaboration with Varma.
