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Amitabh Bachchan starrer Zanjeer is a breakthrough film in the senior actor’s career. It was released in 1973 and is credited for launching Bachchan’s image as the “Angry Young Man” of Indian cinema, a persona that defined much of his career in the 1970s and ’80s. But did you know that part was actually written for Dharmendra? It was written by the incredible duo- Salim Khan and Javed Akhtar.
Javed once revealed that the Dharam Veer actor refused to take on the role for unknown reasons. This revelation reportedly did not board well with Apne star as he seemed to have taken a cryptic jibe at Akhtar after this report came out. Zanjeer is iconic for several reasons; for example, it marked the end of the romantic hero era and the rise of the action-oriented, morally conflicted protagonist. It was a huge turning point in Big B’s career and gave Bollywood some of the iconic dialogues.
According to India Today’s report from a few years back, Javed Akhtar revealed Dharmendra was the first choice for Zanjeer. He said, “Amitabh Bachchan was actually the last choice for Zanjeer. The script was written for Dharmendra ji, but for some reason, he refused to work on it.” He continued, “Prakash Mehra (the director of the film) had a script but no leading man. He went from actor to actor to offer the role. Everybody refused to do the film.”
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Since the film was of a different genre, actors were turning it down as there was no comedy or romance angle. Now, this was posted by HT City on Twitter [Now X], and Dharmendra took a cryptic jibe at Javed Akhtar in the comment section.
Dharmendra wrote, “Javed, kaise ho……. dikhave ki iss duniya mein haqeeqaten dabi rah jaati hain. jeetey raho….. Dilon ko gudgudana khoob aata hai….. kaash sar chad ke bolne ka jaadu bhi sekh liya hota…” Zanjeer was also a big box office success and one of the highest-grossing films of that year.
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