1. Abhishek Bachchan has turned down the maximum number of films that turned out to be neo-classics including Mira Nair’s The Namesake, Ashutosh Gowariker’s Lagaan and Shaad Ali’s Saathiya. Ashutosh told me he waited a whole year for Abhishek to say yes to Lagaan and then went to Aamir Khan who said yes immediately. So who has the better script sense? Aamir or Abhishek? Uttar diya jaye.
2. Contrary to belief, Abhishek doesn’t consult his father before signing a film. He takes his own decisions, for better or worse, and says he stands by every film he has done. In fact Abhishek seeks his mom Jaya’s advice more than his Dad’s, his logic being, ‘Paa seeks Maa’s advice, so she’s got to be wiser than both of us.’
3. Not counting the various guest appearances which they have done together, Abhishek and his father Amitabh Bachchan have shared screen space 4 times in full-fledged roles. The first was Bunty Aur Babli where they did not play father and son. Abhishek has also played his mother’s son in a Bengali film Desh and in a Hindi film Drona.
4. Abhishek has co-starred with his wife Aishwarya in 8 films. When they did their first film together Kuch Na Kaho they weren’t seeing one another. They fell in love during the making of J P Dutt’s Umrao Jaan. They were supposed to do their 9th film together Gulab Jamun directed by Anurag Kashyap. That was shelved.
5. Abhishek was supposed to make his debut in J P Dutta’s Bahadurshah Zafar with Dilip Kumar in the titular role. Abhishek was to play his son. But the project fell through. JP then decided to launch Abhishek with JP’s best friend Randhir Kapoor’s daughter Kareena. At that time Abhishek was seeing Kareena’s sister. And Kareena often played messenger between the two.
6. Father and son Bachchan share the same shoe size and Abhishek loves to borrow shoes from his Paa’s wardrobe. The senior Bachchan is not a big fan of his son’s shoe-borrowing tactics. But what to do. “At least I can fit into his shoes literally, if not in any other way,” Abhishek jokes.
7. After cinema, Abhishek is most passionate about kabaddi. Not only does he own a kabbadi team he plans to produce and play the lead in a film about kabbaddi very soon.
