Big B was NOT the first choice for Khuda Gawah?

Amitabh Bachchan, in his 40 year long career, has given many memorable performances. One of them is of an Afghan warrior Badshah Khan in Mukul S Anand’s

Khuda Gawah

. Now not many are aware that he was not the first choice for the film.
Originally, Sanjay Duttwas approached to play the lead role in the film whereas Amitabh Bachchan was just supposed to make a guest appearance.

However

Dutt

rejected the role stating that he won’t get any pivotal role to play if he does a film which also features Amitabh Bachchan.Thus he didn’t become part of the film and then the film was offered to Nagarjuna, but there were a lot of delays in the film and Amitabh Bachchan was then offered the lead role. As they say, the rest is history.

Big B and Dutt have shared a strong bond. The first time the two of them came together was for

Kaante

which was produced by Sanjay Dutt along with

Sanjay Gupta

and Pritish Nandy. Big B played the lead role in the film. They also came together for films like Aladdin, Shootout at Lokhandwala,

Deewar

etc.
Khuda Gawah, the epic drama featured Big B and late actress Sridevi in the lead roles. The movie also featured Danny Denzongpa, Nagarjuna and

Shilpa Shirodkar

in pivotal roles. The film was shot in Afghanistan and back then the country was undergoing a turmoil. But since Amitabh Bachchan was supposed to shoot the film there, the government had announced a ceasefire. On its release the film went on to become one of the biggest hits of the year.