When Rishi Kapoor Took Dig at Amitabh Bachchan: 'He Has Never Given Due Credit to His Co-actors'

Rishi Kapoor, who died in April 2020 after battling cancer, was one of the most brutally honest celebrities in Bollywood. Apart from entertaining the audience with his versatile acting for several decades, he was known for his no-holds-barred attitude. In his memoir ‘Khullam Khulla: Rishi Kapoor Uncensored’, Rishi candidly spoke about his personal and professional life, from his relationship with wife Neetu Kapoor to his ‘lingering issue’ with Amitabh Bachchan.

The actor had revealed that back in the days, a lot of actors would not prefer to work with Amitabh because “directors and writers unfailingly reserved their strongest, pivotal roles” for him.

In his book, Rishi wrote, “I must confess there is still a lingering issue I have with Amitabh Bachchan. A big disadvantage of working in an all-star movie in those days was that everybody only wanted to make action films, which automatically meant that the star who could carry off action with the most flair would get the meatiest part. That’s how, with the exception of Kabhi Kabhie, which was a romantic film, none of the multi-starrers I featured in had an author-backed role for me. Directors and writers unfailingly reserved their strongest, pivotal roles for Amitabh Bachchan. And it wasn’t just me. Shashi Kapoor, Shatrughan Sinha, Dharmendra, Vinod Khanna faced it too.”

He added, “Amitabh is undeniably a superb actor, immensely talented and, at the time, the number one star who ruled the box-office. He was an action hero, the angry young man. So roles were written for him. Although we may have been smaller stars, we were not lesser actors. Yet, the rest of us had to constantly measure up to him. We had to work hard, really exert ourselves to match up. In my time, the musical/romantic hero had no place. Amitabh was an action hero in an era of action films. As such, writers gave him the lion’s share and he had the authorbacked roles in almost all his films. This gave him an advantage over the rest of us who had to make our presence felt with whatever we got.”

Rishi further said that Amitabh never really acknowledged his co-actors’ “undeniable role” in his success. “He has never given due credit to the actors who have worked with him. He has always credited his writers and directors, Salim-Javed, Manmohan Desai, Prakash Mehra, Yash Chopra and Ramesh Sippy. But it is also true that his co-stars had an undeniable role in his success. Shashi Kapoor in Deewaar (1975), Rishi Kapoor in Amar Akbar Anthony and Coolie or Vinod Khanna, Shatrughan Sinha and Dharmendra all contributed to the success of his films where they shared credit with him, even if in secondary roles. This is something no one has realised or acknowledged. But it was the way things were and we accepted it gracefully,” Rishi wrote in his book.