iven that Bollywood films are watched by a global three billion people, Amitabh Bachchan has a good claim to be the most famous actor in the world. In India, he has long transcended his day job to become a national institution, Brando, Pacino and De Niro rolled into one. Across Asia and the Middle East, “The Big B”, as he is known, gets mobbed in the streets; when he suffered a life-threatening accident during filming, thousands of people joined prayer vigils outside his hospital.
Today, though, at 72, Bachchan is at pains to dispel any aura of grandeur. He sits alone with me for the interview and dismisses introductory compliments with a smile. But when he talks about conducting himself in a way that befits “a normal, aware, citizen of my country”, the humility of the sentiment is cloaked in a regal steel. It feels like the moment when a superhero says he’d like an alter ego, so that he can experience the anonymity of walking around without requests being made of him to save the universe. You might struggle to believe him, but you know that any conversation between the two of you is going to require you to suspend your disbelief.
In a career spanning 45 years, Bachchan has starred in more than 180 films, but only recently dipped his toe in Hollywood, playing Jewish gangster Meyer Wolfsheim in The Great Gatsby. Leonardo DiCaprio said he was “honoured to work with him” on Gatsby, but Bachchan is quick to explain that it was no big deal. “It was a favour to a friend. Baz Luhrmann just called, there was no commerce involved in it, it was not that this is going to be my stepping stone to ‘go somewhere’. No. It was just sheer … a friendly gesture, just a day’s work.” He balances the statement so that he should not appear arrogant or disrespectful: “But it was a great learning curve on the amount of effort that goes in there – the research, the attention to detail, all of that, a great experience.” His tone is even-handed, but firm, gently communicating that it is a little odd for the press to make such a fuss over such a small gig, just because it is in the western world.
With Tobey Maguire and Leonardo Dicaprio in The Great Gatsby. Facebook Twitter Pinterest expand
With Tobey Maguire and Leonardo Dicaprio in The Great Gatsby. Photograph: Warner/Everett/Rex
Bachchan is outspoken about Indian cinema’s distinct identity, and his dislike of the word “Bollywood”. “Western culture is so different. [Our films] propagate many aspects which are non-existent in their culture: family values, relationships, parents and children, brothers, sisters …” It’s strong stuff, to declare family values non-existent in the west, but delivered with a tone of distant authority that renders it a casual statement of fact.
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“We always overcome evil with good. During the last years of my father’s life, every evening he’d watch my films. I’d ask him, ‘Why are you watching these films?’ He’d say, ‘You get to see poetic justice in two and a half hours.’ You and me may not get that in a lifetime, perhaps several lifetimes, and that really is the strength of Indian cinema, to be able to seek poetic justice and actually see it enacted in front of you. I don’t see why it should be attached to another industry. That is not to demean Hollywood: they are big, they are great and they have their own philosophy, their own standards.”
Ever since his marriage to film star Jaya Bhaduri in 1973, Bachchan has been keen to present himself as a wholesome family man. Yet in the 80s, his name was linked to a string of starlets, often portrayed by the Indian press as being destroyed by their affairs with him, owing to his charisma and his commitment to his wife and two children. One, Parveen Babi descended into mental illness, referring to him during flights of paranoia, and another – Rekha – retreated from public life, living mostly without a partner for the decades after their alleged affair. A 1984 interview in which Rekha dismissed his denial (“I love him, he loves me, that’s it! I don’t care what anybody thinks”) ended their on-screen couplings and imbued their joint back catalogue with a Burton/Taylor-style mythology.
Today, though, at 72, Bachchan is at pains to dispel any aura of grandeur. He sits alone with me for the interview and dismisses introductory compliments with a smile. But when he talks about conducting himself in a way that befits “a normal, aware, citizen of my country”, the humility of the sentiment is cloaked in a regal steel. It feels like the moment when a superhero says he’d like an alter ego, so that he can experience the anonymity of walking around without requests being made of him to save the universe. You might struggle to believe him, but you know that any conversation between the two of you is going to require you to suspend your disbelief.
In a career spanning 45 years, Bachchan has starred in more than 180 films, but only recently dipped his toe in Hollywood, playing Jewish gangster Meyer Wolfsheim in The Great Gatsby. Leonardo DiCaprio said he was “honoured to work with him” on Gatsby, but Bachchan is quick to explain that it was no big deal. “It was a favour to a friend. Baz Luhrmann just called, there was no commerce involved in it, it was not that this is going to be my stepping stone to ‘go somewhere’. No. It was just sheer … a friendly gesture, just a day’s work.” He balances the statement so that he should not appear arrogant or disrespectful: “But it was a great learning curve on the amount of effort that goes in there – the research, the attention to detail, all of that, a great experience.” His tone is even-handed, but firm, gently communicating that it is a little odd for the press to make such a fuss over such a small gig, just because it is in the western world.
With Tobey Maguire and Leonardo Dicaprio in The Great Gatsby. Facebook Twitter Pinterest expand
With Tobey Maguire and Leonardo Dicaprio in The Great Gatsby. Photograph: Warner/Everett/Rex
Bachchan is outspoken about Indian cinema’s distinct identity, and his dislike of the word “Bollywood”. “Western culture is so different. [Our films] propagate many aspects which are non-existent in their culture: family values, relationships, parents and children, brothers, sisters …” It’s strong stuff, to declare family values non-existent in the west, but delivered with a tone of distant authority that renders it a casual statement of fact.
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“We always overcome evil with good. During the last years of my father’s life, every evening he’d watch my films. I’d ask him, ‘Why are you watching these films?’ He’d say, ‘You get to see poetic justice in two and a half hours.’ You and me may not get that in a lifetime, perhaps several lifetimes, and that really is the strength of Indian cinema, to be able to seek poetic justice and actually see it enacted in front of you. I don’t see why it should be attached to another industry. That is not to demean Hollywood: they are big, they are great and they have their own philosophy, their own standards.”
Ever since his marriage to film star Jaya Bhaduri in 1973, Bachchan has been keen to present himself as a wholesome family man. Yet in the 80s, his name was linked to a string of starlets, often portrayed by the Indian press as being destroyed by their affairs with him, owing to his charisma and his commitment to his wife and two children. One, Parveen Babi descended into mental illness, referring to him during flights of paranoia, and another – Rekha – retreated from public life, living mostly without a partner for the decades after their alleged affair. A 1984 interview in which Rekha dismissed his denial (“I love him, he loves me, that’s it! I don’t care what anybody thinks”) ended their on-screen couplings and imbued their joint back catalogue with a Burton/Taylor-style mythology.
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