Rajesh Khanna was signed for Deewaar, but .. When Salim Khan discussed ideal and compromised casting in movies Watch (Throwback)

Angry Young Men-the documentary series based on the life of the iconic Bollywood writers Salim Khan and Javed Akhtar released recently. The series shows the two legends speaking about their careers, and personal lives with their family members and colleagues also sharing their perspectives and opinions.

One movie that gave them a big break in Bollywood was Zanjeer. It is also the movie that gave Amitabh Bachchan his first big hit and the tag of Angry Young Man. But before Amitabh, the writer duo and the producer-director Prakash Mehra had approached many other big actors of that time including Dharmendra , Rajkumar, Shashi Kapoor, Dilip Kumar, and more, however, they rejected this story.

At that time Rajesh Khanna was a big star and both Salim and Javed knew him well. They could have asked him to take the role of male lead in Zanjeer but Salim-Javed did not do so. Rajesh Khanna was also signed by Gulshan Rai who was producing Deewaar but it was Salim-Javed who insisted that the role of Vijay should go to Amitabh Bachchan as he is more suitable for it.

During one of his interviews, Salim Khan discussed why it happened and what difference does the ideal and compromised casting can make to the fate of a movie.

The handsome writer said, “There is something like ideal casting and there is something like compromised casting. Zanjeer ka jo role tha when we approached Amitabh Bachchan we very strongly felt that it was ideal casting. Ke Zanjeer ka role Amitabhji ke alawa koi aur nahi kar sakta. Halanki uss martaba kai dafa producers ne jinko hamne kahani bechi thi they felt it ki it is not economically viable and feasible. So we approached different people. It is not that we did not approach different people.”

But he said that Amitabh Bachchan was their original choice for Zanjeer. Sharing a similar incident during the casting of Vijay in Deewaar Salim Saab said, “Rajesh Khanna was signed by Mr. Gulshan Rai for his next film. But we very strongly felt ki iss role ki jo ideal casting hai woh Amitabh Bachchan hai and we insisted ki agar yeh kahani aapko banana hai toh isme Amitabh Bachchan hi kam karenge.”

“Isliye ki shayad picture chal jati agar koi dusra hota. But it would not have been an ideal casting. It would have been a compromised casting,” he added. According to Salim Khan and Javed Akhtar both Zanjeer and Deewaar would not have become such big hits if Amitabh was not cast as the lead hero.