Interesting Facts About The Movie Sholay Starring Amitabh Bachchan And Dharmendra (Part II)

Sholay was the highest grosser of its time and broke the Mughal-e-Azam's fifteen years old record.  

Any discussion about the history of Bollywood will be incomplete without mentioning the name of Sholay. It was the highest grosser at that time and broke the Mughal-e-Azam's fifteen years old record. Continuing from the first story, here are a few more interesting facts about the Sholay.

The Starcast Of The Movie Was Very Different Before 

According to many reports, the original casting of the movie was quite different from the present cast of the movie.

Ramesh Sippy had a very different star cast for the movie contrary to what we see in the movie. Dilip Kumar was first offered the role of Thakur but he rejected it, then Ramesh Sippy cast Dharmendra as Thakur and Sanjeev Kumar as Veeru. Dharmendra immediately swapped the roles because at that time both the actors were trying to woo Hema Malini. If you notice there is not a single scene between the character of Thakur and Basanti.

The role of Jai was supposed to be played by Shatrughan Sinha but later Amitabh Bachchan was selected after the insistence of Salim-Javed who thought Amitabh fits the character most. Danny was supposed to play Gabbar Singh but could not do it because of the date problems and then Amjad Khan was selected. Now nobody can even imagine any other actors playing the characters in Sholay.

Climax Scene Was Changed

The censor board during that time was not as lenient as today and they asked the makers to change the climax. 

In the theatrical version of what we saw, at the climax police come and arrest Gabbar Singh but in the original climax, Thakur kills Gabbar Singh. The censor board didn’t want to have such a violent climax and an ex-police officer breaking the law by killing someone. The original version is also available on the internet where Thakur kills Gabbar with his shoes attached with sharp metal nails.

Characters Were Inspired By Original People Salim-Javed Knew

It must be an interesting fact that many names in the movie were taken from real-life people whom writers Salim and Javed knew personally.

The names of Jai and Veeru were taken from two college-time friends of Salim Khan while the name of the character Soorma Bhopali was taken from a real person named Soorma whom they knew. The name of Gabbar Singh was taken from a real-life dacoit. The scene where Jai, played by Amitabh Bachchan goes to Basanati’s aunty for asking her hand for marriage with Veeru is inspired by a real incident. During that time Javed Akhtar wanted to marry Honey Irani and sent Salim Khan to ask her hand for marriage.