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Sharmila Tagore recalled how Amitabh Bachchan and Shatrughan Sinha would be on set at different times.
Dostana’s poster.
Sharmila Tagore has been a part of the Indian film industry for nearly 65 years now. In a recent chat with SCREEN, the veteran actress recalled how Shatrughan Sinha was always late on set. She revealed that while shooting Dostana, Amitabh Bachchan would be punctual about his schedule while Shatrughan Sinha was always left. Thus, Zeenat Aman had to make adjustments.
Sharmila Tagore recalled, “After Shashi Kapoor, Amitabh Bachchan was the only actor who came on time. So, Dostana starred Amitabh Bachchan, Shatrughan Sinha, and Zeenat Aman. Shatrughan Sinha was notorious for being late—he was late to his own
wedding
, and as a parliamentarian, he was late. He is biologically incapable of being on time. For that film, the shift was from 7 am to 2 pm, and at exactly 2 pm, Mr Bachchan’s car would leave, and Shatrughan Sinha’s car would enter.”
She added, “You can imagine Raj Khosla lost all his hair during the making of the film. You won’t find all three—Amitabh, Shatrughan, and Zeenat—in one frame. Of course, Zeenat adjusted her schedule to accommodate both their timings. For most scenes, the director had to use a body double for shots, filming from behind with the duplicate’s head visible from the back. Shatrughan used to do it for fun; he wasn’t a tormentor—he was a wonderful person. He simply didn’t have the genes to be on time.”
Recently, Shabana Azmi also recalled the working
culture
during her time and revealed that heroes were never on time on the sets. Shabana Azmi also praised Amitabh Bachchan for being punctual. In a conversation with Radio Nasha, Shabana Azmi recalled an incident and said, “We used to work on 12 films simultaneously I was working on this film Namkeen with Sanjeev Kumar. The shoot of the film took place in Film City, and the shift would start at 7 in the morning, but Sanjeev Kumar never came before 11:30 am. I used to request my mother, ‘Mom, please don’t wake me up so early, the hero never comes on time.’”
“Sanjeev Kumar would only come at 11:30 and after shooting four-five shots, I used to rush to Filmistaan. There, for 2-10 shift, Shatrughan Sinha only came in at 7 pm… Comparatively, Rajesh Khanna was better. He was not as bad as Sanjeev and Shatrughan,” she recalled.
