'Shahenshah' director shares interesting trivia about Amitabh Bachchan's iconic costume

Filmmaker Tinnu Anand of Amitabh Bachchan-led ‘Shahenshah’ revealed how the veteran actor’s costume ended up with Jeetendra.

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In a recent outing on a radio show, veteran actor-filmmaker, who is best known for directing Amitabh Bachchan’s vigilante, action film ‘Shahenshah’, revealed that he initially designed a different costume himself for his title, which was given to eminent actor Jeetendra by the designer, for his film ‘Aag Aur Shola’, co-starring late actor Sridevi.

“I designed the costume personally. With the help of Amitabh’s designer, we came up with a black leather outfit: black pants, black shoes, and black boots. I even added a rope around his shoulder, though that idea was later dropped,” Anand shared with the host.

He continued to reveal, “Then, what Akbar [Amitabh’s designer] did was, he cheated on me. He gave that costume to Jeetendra. If you see his film [Aag Aur Shola], he’s wearing the same costume, just with the rope.”

“I was angry, disappointed and hurt.”

When Anand came to know about it, he explained the situation to Bachchan and told him that he would never work with that designer again, and went to another designer, Kishore Bajaj instead.

Speaking about the iconic steel arm, Anand divulged that it weighed at least 14 kg. “We sat down, we went through hundreds of magazines, going through clothes and finally, we landed up on an ad by a French company who designed fencing clothes, sword fencing. And there was this ad of this arm, starting from the shoulder to the wrists, and that was fascinating. So I said, ‘Do you think you can design this?’ He said, ‘It will take a lot of time, effort, and a lot of money.’ I said, ‘Don’t worry about that. Just give me a design’,” he detailed.

“So Kishore brought in the bag with the costume, which was very, very heavy. Amitabh said, ‘This is what I’m going to wear during my fights?’ I said, ‘Let’s see you wear it.’ So we left the room and we came back after about 10 minutes,” the director recalled Bachchan’s reaction. “There was a wall-to-wall mirror and he was standing there. He was very, very impressed. He said, ‘Okay, done. This is final’.”

One of the most iconic films of his career, ‘Shahenshah’ starring Bachchan with Meenakshi Sheshadri, came out in 1988, and its dialogues, specifically “Rishte Mein To Hum Tumhare Baap Hote Hain, Naam Hai Shahenshah,” is remembered till date.

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