Did You Know Amjad Khan Snubbed Suresh Oberoi For His Role In ‘Ek Baar Phir’?
In an exclusive Lehren Retro interview, Suresh Oberoi reveals Amjad Khan's critique of his role in 'Ek Baar Phir'. Uncover Bollywood's past controversies with Bharathi S Pradhan.
Transcript
00:00 What was it like working with Vinod Khanna?
00:03 Vinod was very nice.
00:05 He didn't have these complexes that some of the other heroes had?
00:09 That his voice is so good that...
00:12 Your voice was even better than his.
00:14 Now, who doesn't have it?
00:18 Everyone has it, right?
00:20 A little jealousy, a little love...
00:22 I would have felt jealous if the artist in front of me was doing so well and I was doing so little.
00:29 It happens.
00:31 In one small film, Chutput, I don't even remember who the actor was.
00:35 He didn't say anything to me.
00:38 He said, "I will be in your place, you will be in my place. I am leaving the film."
00:44 And he left.
00:45 And I didn't even know him. I was not even introduced.
00:48 He left because you were better than him?
00:51 No, but he could speak.
00:53 In front of you?
00:54 He could speak in dialogue.
00:56 I didn't know what had happened. It was blank.
00:58 And did he come back?
00:59 And he said that he will come back?
01:01 No, he said that he will come back in front of me in some other film.
01:04 He didn't come back?
01:05 No, I didn't see him.
01:07 It happens when it has to happen.
01:12 But I am so surprised, you know, Suresh.
01:15 I never thought people would have this kind of insecurities.
01:18 I don't know if there are insecurities.
01:20 I don't know. Now, personally, in the film, in the studio, who played a role?
01:29 I was playing a police officer, I don't remember who was it.
01:32 I saw Amjad, I was a great fan of his.
01:34 I went to meet him, I said, "Sir, I am Suresh Oberoi."
01:37 "Oh, you are the same."
01:40 "Put it again."
01:42 "Are we superstars like this? Do you show this?"
01:47 In 2021, I was in tears in public.
01:51 That also I have seen in my life.
01:53 It's okay.
01:55 But that was a role you did.
01:57 Anand Sagar explained it to me.
02:00 You can't speak like this.
02:02 Because you can't be subjective, objective.
02:05 Whatever you said, you said it well.
02:07 He said, "No, you can't do that."
02:10 So you mean to say you played a very spoiled superstar in Ek Baar Phir.
02:16 But that was a role, right?
02:17 No, he said, "You have shown it too much, in low light."
02:20 "Girls, this money, asking for dollars."
02:23 "People are coming with jewellery."
02:25 Pandey had done a little more.
02:27 Dinod Pandey.
02:29 Okay.
02:30 So I said only one line to him.
02:32 I said it at the end.
02:34 I said, "Sir, tell me one thing."
02:36 "The one who doesn't have five pounds in his pocket."
02:38 "If someone comes and says, 'I will give you money, make you a hero and take you to London.'"
02:43 "Did you leave at that time?"
02:45 Then he said, "Yeah, you are right."
02:50 "If he had done dharm, it would have been right. If he had done wrong, it would have been wrong."
02:53 "Newcomer, okay."
02:55 "If you have any work, I am always there for you."
02:59 Later, it changed.
03:01 "It's not like that. Any problem, I am there."
03:03 He really said, "I don't have five pounds in my pocket."
03:08 "And I have to play a superstar."
03:10 "And I didn't even have a passport."
03:14 I went to the passport office and begged him.
03:17 I said, "I am getting a role, sir. Please give it to me."
03:20 This is for you to shoot Vinod Pandey's film Burberry in London.
03:24 How does destiny work?
03:27 I went to meet Sippy.
03:29 Which Sippy?
03:31 Daddu.
03:32 Daddu is Raj Sippy.
03:34 I went to meet Sippy.
03:37 From someone's office, Koko was coming out.
03:42 Kuljit Singh.
03:44 I knew him from the institute.
03:47 I met him once.
03:49 He was not in my batch.
03:51 I was not in his batch. He was a senior.
03:53 I went to the institute and met him.
03:57 I said, "How is the work going?"
04:00 "I am very worried."
04:02 "I get modeling, sometimes I get radio."
04:04 "I don't have a role."
04:06 "And I am fed up of struggling."
04:08 He said, "I got a role."
04:11 "A Pandey man has come."
04:14 I still remember that.
04:16 "In Pochkanwala street, there is a flat."
04:20 Pochkanwala.
04:22 I found his number. He gave it to me.
04:28 I came home.
04:30 I called him from a coin box.
04:34 I said, "Hello."
04:35 Pandey picked up.
04:37 I said, "Sir, you are looking for a hero."
04:39 He said, "I don't look like a hero."
04:41 "I have a big moustache."
04:43 At that time, the moustache was not so big.
04:45 Shammi Kapoor and Raj Kapoor.
04:47 Everybody was clean shaven.
04:49 Shashi ji.
04:51 Mainly.
04:53 He said, "Come and meet me."
04:55 I asked him.
04:57 The shopkeepers were lying there.
04:59 I asked him, "How much does it cost to take a taxi from here?"
05:03 He said, "30 rupees."
05:05 I said, "Sir, come now."
05:07 He came and went home.
05:09 I told Yashi, "It will cost 30 rupees."
05:13 "Come. You must be tired at night."
05:15 "Then it will cost 30 rupees."
05:17 "And it will cost 60 rupees."
05:19 "50 rupees is enough to run the house in a week."
05:21 "How can it cost 60 rupees?"
05:23 Yashi said, "Go."
05:25 I went there.
05:29 He had such a big moustache.
05:31 I asked him, "What should I do with it?"
05:35 He said, "Sir, how will I remember it?"
05:37 "Let me take it home."
05:39 "No. Keep this mic and I will read it."
05:41 "You keep saying the dialogues."
05:43 So,
05:45 he said a line.
05:47 "Friends, friends."
05:51 A little off.
05:53 I had learnt how to speak on mic and radio from Brij Bhushan.
05:59 Brij Bhushan was married to Meena Kumar's sister, Madhu Balas.
06:07 So, Brij Bhushan introduced you to the various ways of using the mic and throwing your voice?
06:13 No, no. Brij Bhushan taught me how to stand in front of the mic and how to modulate.
06:19 He said, "Voices are of many people."
06:22 "You have to do it like this."
06:24 "You have to put this feeling and this."
06:26 Like a Guru to a disciple.
06:28 So, I used all those techniques and spoke the dialogues better than Pandey.
06:34 I was trained by that.
06:36 So, he said, "I feel something, like fire."
06:42 I said, "I was praying inside, that I get the picture."
06:46 Later he said, "We give weekly payment."
06:48 "Sir, contract."
06:50 I said, "Whatever you give."
06:52 Finally, he liked it and asked me if I have a passport.
06:56 I said, "Yes."
06:58 How the universe helps.
07:03 Things are already predestined.
07:06 Because I didn't even know what we were doing.
07:09 We were just walking on the road, my wife and me.
07:11 I met a Sindhi guy who was a few blocks away.
07:15 I said, "What do you do?"
07:17 He said, "I make passports for people."
07:20 I said, "Okay. You have a travel agency."
07:22 I said, "Very good. You can do it for me."
07:25 My wife started laughing.
07:27 She said, "What do you know?"
07:29 "If a producer says you have to go out, you have to have a passport."
07:34 There was not even a single picture at that time.
07:37 Finally, I gave money to him to fill in the form.
07:44 I filled the form.
07:47 After I came back, I remembered from Pandey's house.
07:51 I remembered suddenly, "Oh, I gave him money."
07:54 I went to his house.
07:56 He said, "It will take a lot of time."
07:59 I said, "Fill it."
08:02 He filled the form and gave me the documents.
08:05 I went there to the passport office.
08:09 It seemed like a third-class train was rushing more than Andheri station.
08:16 It was a rush.
08:18 Nobody knew how.
08:21 I asked, "Who is coming? Who is going? Where is the passport office?"
08:25 There was no question of the old days.
08:28 I reached there.
08:30 That guy was looking at me.
08:32 "What?" I said.
08:34 "Are you mad?"
08:35 He asked me in two days.
08:37 "Okay."
08:38 I said, "Sir, it's a question of my career."
08:40 He said, "Okay. Come day after tomorrow."
08:45 Okay.
08:47 I got my passport in two days.
08:49 In those days, in the 80s.
08:51 Fantastic.
08:53 That's how, when things have to fall into place, they just do.
08:56 Isn't it?
08:58 This is God's will.
08:59 Kuku told you about this offer from Vinod Pandey.
09:02 And you went to Vinod Pandey.
09:03 And before that I was getting trained.
09:05 You were getting trained in your voice.
09:07 And also getting money from him.
09:08 But Ek Baar Phir was a very strong film, isn't it?
09:12 It shook everyone.
09:15 Women loved it.
09:17 It was just some kind of a liberation for them.
09:21 But you played a very toxic superstar in that.
09:25 And a bad husband in that.
09:26 He was a bad man.
09:28 Yeah, he was a bad man.
09:30 Nobody did that for me.
09:33 Kamal Jit didn't say anything.
09:35 Hari bhai didn't say anything.
09:36 Everyone didn't say anything.
09:37 That's why I...
09:39 That's why you got it.
09:40 Which is good for you.
09:42 But did that also help to further consolidate you as a bad man?
09:48 No, that made a lot of...
09:52 Secretaries in those days used to control the heroines a lot.
09:56 They used to say, "He has done a very bad film.
09:59 Your image will be ruined."
10:00 And if you tell a girl that her image will be ruined,
10:02 she will say, "No, no."
10:03 And no hero will say anything to you.
10:05 So secretaries were influencing the heroines.
10:08 No, but secretaries had the belief system in them.
10:11 That a hero is a hero.
10:13 A judge's son is a judge.
10:15 A police officer's son is a police officer.
10:17 If there is a role, then there is a role.
10:19 It's fixed.
10:21 Yeah.
10:23 They used to use the word "image".
10:26 This is his image.
10:27 That's where that word "typecasting" came also.
10:30 Typecasting image was there.
10:31 That's right.
10:33 [Music]
10:40 you