I'm fortunate that people are writing stories for me: Amitabh Bachchan

He may be a veteran actor, but Amitabh Bachchan exudes the curiosity of a child as he takes in all the developments that the film industry has witnessed over the years. Amazed and amused at the style in which young filmmakers are whipping up scripts, the actor shares his excitement at being part of a new wave, his diligence to exercise and being an early morning bird, no matter what.  

Is it true that you dub your films early in the morning?
Yes, I think one is fresh at that time. Also, you don’t have the pressure of the rest of that day’s work. It’s a nice time to dub.

You also start your exercise regime at 4 am…
Not 4 am, but yes, I do work out early in the morning. I started it only 5-6 years ago. Someone told me about how there are trainers available and that they fix you. Jaya, Abhishek had their trainers but it was a term I wasn’t acquainted with until recently. So I said okay.

Do you diligently workout now?
Yes, once I started it, I didn’t feel like stopping. It really regulates your life and you feel good. The day you don’t go to the gym, you feel a little odd. I am feeling odd today because I haven’t gone to the gym.
 
What is it that drives you to work 17-18 hours a day?
 Nothing! I don’t know why everyone keeps asking me that. If there is work to be done, it has to be done. Finish it! There are shooting schedules with certain timings—it starts at 9 am and finishes at so and so time. If it doesn’t finish on time, I feel it’s wise to continue working late into the night and finish it rather than stop and then come again. You lose continuity, you loose the mood. So I finish my work and then come back home, spend some time with the family. Then there are other jobs like writing the blog before going to sleep.
 
About work, how do you sift through the scripts you receive? There are some many interesting ideas floating about out there…
Yes, that’s really admirable. The kind of screenplay, concepts, story ideas, character sketches that they (new filmmakers) come up with, are very unique. Fortunately, at this age you don’t have to worry about playing the leading man, so you get to play characters that you may not have taken up when you were younger. Because then, you’d want to play a typical hero. It’s wonderful to look into these new characters now.
 
But the audience still looks at your face on a poster while buying tickets. You are still the hero for them…
No, that’s not correct.
 
The Te3n trailer for instance is about you. There are other characters of course, but it’s a lot about you…
I am just fortunate that people are writing stories for me or building stories around me. I think it’s healthy for cinema per se. The audiences have become very perceptive, mature and they are exposed to much more than what they were. There was a time when Western films would reach us years later and now we have access to them even before they are released there! Today people have the funds and resources to do what they want. It wasn’t like this before.

How drastically would you say things have changed?
Today people don’t hesitate before getting the very best of technology from the West. We could never dream of that in my times. We shot movies on reel and that was so expensive. You don’t have that anymore. Some of my shots in Pink have run up to 15-20 minutes with six cameras. It fantastic and frightening to be doing something like this. During my time, one wouldn’t go over 30 seconds. I am very keen to see how Pink is edited.

Director Ribhu Dasgupta (Te3n) has very little body of work. How did you mange to completely surrender to his vision?
It’s not surrender, it’s only professional to do that. Once you have decided to work with a particular director, it’s only natural that you will follow what he says.
 
Are you not scared to sign up with a new filmmaker?
No, I am not. I think if somebody has an idea and says that they want to do this movie with you and if you like it, you go ahead and do it. But, whatever you need to discuss and debate, you need to do that before going on the set. Once you are on set, then he is the captain. There were times even during Te3n, when I finished a shot and thought it was fine. But Ribhu would come and say ‘this is where we have gone wrong’ or ‘this is where you have over acted, can we do it again?’ So we go through multiple takes till he is satisfied. We are not masters of the final product; the final product is in the mind of the director. It’s important for someone to tell us where we are going wrong.