Megastar Amitabh Bachchan is a very good actor who produced more hit films per year than screen icon Dilip Kumar during his heyday, said veteran screenwriter and lyricist Javed Akhtar on Thursday.
Javed Akhtar, along with writing partner Salim Khan, helped Bachchan land his much-needed breakthrough in the film industry with the 1973 action crime film "Zanjeer," which gave birth to the 'Angry Young Man' phenomenon.
The writer, who has been part of about 14 films of which Bachchan has been a part, including "Sholay", "Don", "Deewar", and "Amar Akbar Anthony", confessed about the immense workaholic.
"He is exceptionally good, we have to accept it. He is a brilliant actor. After Dilip saab, the second man who came was Amitabh Bachchan. His turnover was much more than him (Kumar). Dilip saab used to do one film in two years, he (Bachchan) gave seven superhits in a year alone.
"We backed him, he gave us a great performance. He had tremendous discipline and focus. He had total control over his tongue; he would never make a statement which could be controversial in so many years. Seven o' clock shift would mean he would be there quarter to seven in spite of being a star," Javed Akhtar said at an event.
He was speaking at the third edition of the Indian Express' six-part series Expresso in Mumbai. He was accompanied by his daughter, filmmaker Zoya Akhtar.
79-year-old he said, as Salim-Javed, he and his collaborator as a writer were clever in judging Bachchan's ability to excel in performance.
"He never complained that he didn't say the lines well. I'm grateful at times that he said the lines the way he did because he would add that (emotion) to them that was not on paper. We were bright and sharp enough to be seeing that there is great talent." he added.
Is there a "Deewar"-like film, shot in the seventies, which spoke to the anger and discontent of the masses with the government then, against what's going on in India now? To that question, Javed Akhtar said, "If you show what is going on in the country, the picture will be banned." But Zoya Akhtar thought for a while and replied, "I guess, there's a disconnect."
Speaking about the lasting impact that the famous dialogue; "Mere paas maa hai" from "Deewar" had, Javed Akhtar said, society seemed to be putting up with "so much premium" on mothers so that they can misbehave with other women.
"In any society where there is a lot of premium on mothers, it means women are in a bad shape. They are in trouble. 'Maa ki pooja hone chahiye (We should worship mothers).' "But what about the women you don't worship, which also coincidentally includes your wife? People should respect my mom but what about the mother of my kids? This is all rubbish," he said.
Zoya Akhtar, an executive producer on "Angry Young Men," a docuseries on Salim-Javed, was asked why the Prime Video project did not show the writing partners sitting together. "I don't know. It was a directorial choice, in a way. So officially and authoritatively, as a director of the show, she's the one who can answer that question," she said.
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