Abhishek Bachchan made his acting debut in the year 2000 with the romantic drama Refugee. The JP Dutta directorial also marked the debut of Kareena Kapoor. However, recently, the actor revealed that he had written a script for himself with Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra before doing Refugee. Abhishek pitched it to his father Amitabh Bachchan. Let’s find out his reaction.
Abhishek Bachchan wrote a script before Refugee
In a recent actor’s roundtable interview with Galatta Plus, Abhishek Bachchan revealed that he wrote a script with his director friend Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra before making his debut with Refugee. The duo came up with this idea as no one was willing to launch Abishek as an actor or Rakeysh as a filmmaker (he was making ads then). The script was called Samjhauta Express and it followed the story of a terrorist who is searching for his father taken away when he was a child. Rakeysh even started look tests while Abhishek started growing his beard and hair.
They then decided to pitch it to Amitabh Bachchan. Abhishek revealed that Big B heard the narration and went silent for a moment. He then told them, “Boys, bahut hi bakwaas script hai (its a very bad script) and asked Abhishek to “get out.” “We got really demoralised. Rakeysh went off and he was very upset and I think he took it rather badly and opened a bottle of rather strong stuff and he penned down something. Next day he called me and said, ‘I have written something and I am vengence writing. I’ve written a script called Good vs Evil.’ Which then went on to become Aks. He wrote it as kunus,” he added.
About Refugee
Refugee is directed by JP Dutta and stars Abhishek Bachchan, Kareena Kapoor, Jackie Shroff, Sunil Shetty, and Anupam Kher. It is reportedly based on a short story Love Across the Salt Desert by Keki N. Daruwalla. Upon release, the film met with mixed reviews and turned out to be an average grosser.
Mehra, on the other hand, went on to make Aks with Amitabh Bachchan, Manoj Bajpayee and Nandita Das.
