Legendary actor Anupam Kher says that his role has been chopped out from the movie ‘Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro’, which was directed by Kundan Shah. Kundan was at the Jio MAMI 19th Mumbai Film Festival and at the session, they all were remembering the late actor Om Puri and all those people who are associated with the 1983 film revisited memorable behind-the-scene stories.
Legendary actor Om Puri died in January this year while Kundan Shah passed away earlier to this month. The dialogues of the movie were written by Satish Kaushik and he has also featured in the movie and he has revealed that Anupam Kher played the role of a villain in the movie titled ‘Disco Killer’, but during the final edit of the movie his part was not included.
Anupam says that there was a character in the movie ‘Disco Killer’ and that role was played by him. In the movie, he was having an eyesight problem so he shoots at a man but he hits a mango. When he is told by his friends that he has shot a mango then he laughs and says that next when he will aim at the mango then man will fall.
The maker of the movie Vidhu Vinod Chopra was working as the production controller in the movie and says that he was the one who told Anupam about the cuts. He said that when he told him that his role has been cut then he said that please do not cut many roles from the movie then he said that it has already been cut. He informed him that his entire role in the movie has been cut by the makers of the movie.
Director Vijay Krishna Acharya started his career as an assistant in the Kundan Shah’s movie title ‘Kabhi Ha Kabhi Na’. After when he got to know that his whole role has been cut, he cried a lot because that was the time when he got to know that he was no longer a part of the movie title ‘Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro’. Apart from the Anupam Kher’s role, there were many things in the movie which has been removed, there was one sentimental song called ‘Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro’ from that song the title was born even that has been removed.
The movie is based on the story of a two photographer Naseeruddin Shah and Ravi Baswani, both of them employed by a newspaper editor and there the job which was allocated to both them was to expose the scandalous activities of a rich builder and at last they accidentally end up photographing a murder. Remembering the premiere night, Kaushik said that they thought that everyone will treat them like a big star but nothing like that actually happened.
On that premiere night, both of them went to the Maratha Mandir and there they saw that the first NFDC movie was having a premiere and they were thinking that they both will be welcomed by everyone with a red carpet but nothing like that actually happened. Kaushik said that when they have been there they saw Kundan was standing outside the ticket counter with the tickets in his hands and when they came they said let’s go in and Kundan said that first, you have to pay for the tickets which he has bought for them.
Sudhir Mishra, director of the movie and he has even written the movie and has done the screenplay of the movie he said that Lt. Om Puri immediately said yes to the movie without even reading the script. He said that Om Puri was at Bandra Station and he was going for a shoot and Kundan narrated him the script on the train and Om Puri agreed to do the movie without even looking at the script. On the very last day of the Mahabharat, he told him that the script of the movie is really good.
However, the writer of the movie, ‘Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro’ explain to them that the script has a follow-up scenes after the iconic sequence where Om Puri has a conversation with the dead body. There was one more scene in the movie when Om has to lift the dead body up and he has to play the chess with that dead body and the funny things about that was the dead body wins and he says that was their favorite scene from the movie. He says that scene was the part of the script but that scene was never shot.
Vidhu Vinod Chopra was the production controller of the movie and despite that, he played the role of a Dushaasan in the Mahabharata scene, which is considered to be one of the major highlights of that movie. Vidhu even revealed that he was never wanted to be in the movie and he says that all that happened accidentally. He selected an actor to play the role in the movie and had also agreed to pay him a sum of Rs 500 for the four days of the shoot and he thought that he was telling him to give Rs 500 per day and just before the shooting he wanted Rs 2000 and he tried to explain that actor a lot but he did not agree he even tried convincing him for Rs 1000 or Rs 1500, but he did not agree on that he wanted Rs 2000.
At the same time, the costume for the role came and he was like ‘Give it to me’ and when he wore the costume and he appeared in the costume to shoot at that time Shah was aghast and he told him that he should focus on the shoot rather than on him and moreover he says that he is saving Rs 2000 by playing this role. He says that it has been three decades and now the movie has found a new audience but Vidhu Vinod Chopra says that no one knew that they were making a cult movie at that time.
However, Vidhu Chopra says that they all talk about the movie highly now, but he said that honestly none of them knew that what was being made. He says that it almost took 7-8 hours long when it comes to the edit table and they all were thinking that he has gone mad, But he says that he genuinely miss Kundan.