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Amitabh in Amruthadhare

Srikanth Srinivasa speaks with writer-director Nagathihalli Chandrashekar who will have Amitabh Bachchan in a cameo role, in his latest film— Amruthadhare.

Truly, Kannada cinema is shining. With actress Tara winning the National award for the Best Actress in Girish Kasaravalli’s Haseena and a number of Kannada films doing well at the box-office, it’s raining good days in Gandhinagar. It's now official.

The Indian film industry's legendary actor Amitabh Bachchan will be acting in a South Indian film, that too, in a Kannada film for the first time. Writer-director Nagathihalli Chandrashekar has successfully managed to rope in Big B for his forthcoming film Amruthadhare.

Nagathihalli Chandrashekar does not want to make Big B’s presence in Amruthadhare as the movie’s USP. He believes that like how Amitabh himself believes that the script should reign supreme, he also feels that Amitabh Bachchan should make a special appearance in the movie only because it is an integral part of the script.

He says that Big B’s portion of the movie was shot in Mumbai for three days. He says the heroine of the movie— Ramya is a big fan of Amitabh in the movie and Big B plays himself, and acts as a saviour for the dying heroine. Amitabh Bachchan will be hogging the limelight for about five to seven minutes in the movie and will utter a few lines in Kannada, English and Hindi.

Director Chandrashekar says. “We wanted to sign a legend for this movie and since the heroine is a big fan of Amitabh Bachchan in the movie, we decided to have him play the role.”

A fan of Big B

Director Chandrashekar says he was always in awe of Amitabh Bachchan, who he says is truly the “actor of the millennium.”

He says that journalist Subhash Jha and the hero of his movie— Dhyaan helped him in reaching out to the legendary actor and to sign him on. “I read his biographical book— ‘To be or not to be’ and was inspired by his down-to-earth existence despite being an icon. Amitji asked me to give him a copy of the script. When I went to him with the script again, he read the script and e-mailed to me stating that he would participate in the project”.

Director Chandrashekar says that Amitabh Bachchan himself said that he had accepted to act in the Kannada movie out of gratitude to the people of Karnataka and especially Bangalore who prayed for his survival after the Coolie accident.