Veteran actor Shatrughan Sinha in a recent interview, spoke candidly about how late filmmaker Yash Chopra was apprehensive about casting him in his 1979 action drama, Kaala Patthar.
Way back in the 70s, multi starrer films were quite a norm and you had many actors collaborating together to entertain the audience. Looking back at that era, one film that comes to our mind is Yash Chopra’s 1979 film, Kaala Patthar which had an ensemble cast that included names like Amitabh Bachchan, Shatrughan Sinha, Shashi Kapoor, Parveen Babi and Neetu Kapoor.
However, in a recent interaction with Arbaaz Khan for his chat show, ‘The Invincibles’, Shatrughan Sinha made some startling revelations about this movie.
The veteran actor revealed that the film’s director Yash Chopra was in a big dilemma while casting him in the role of Mangal Singh in Kaala Patthar. Explaining the reason behind the same, Sinha shared that way back then, other stars were jealous of him but since they couldn’t find any reasons to not work with him, they would say that he shouldn’t be cast as he was never on time.
“Yash Chopra was in a dilemma. A lot of his actors did not want me to do the film,” Shatrughan Sinha said in his conversation with Arbaaz Khan.
He further revealed that Salim-Javed, the writers of Kaala Patthar, insisted that Chopra cast him as they had penned the character of Mangal Singh with him in mind.
Shatrughan recalled how Salim Khan, of Salim-Javed duo visited him and told him, “They will try that you don’t do this film for some or the other reason – for money, punctuality, dates, cooperation. No matter what they say, you just agree with them. You don’t give them a chance. This will be a cult film and people will always remember you.”
Salim Khan’s words rang true and upon the film’s release, Shatrughan Sinha was lauded for his performance as Mangal Singh, an escaped convict who finds refuge at a coal mine.
Kaala Patthar revolves around how three men stand up to fight for justice for the coal miners when they are struck by a disaster.
