'I don't like to be shouted at': Amitabh Bachchan on Eklavya drama

Dubai: Amitabh Bachchan's reputation for professionalism on set is well documented. But a particularly entertaining set of anecdotes from the making of Eklavya: The Royal Guard shows just how far that professionalism extends, and how chaotic things got before it all came together.

In the book Unscripted: Conversations on Life and Cinema, filmmaker Vidhu Vinod Chopra and co-author Abhijat Joshi recalled several stories from the shoot that paint a picture of two strong personalities navigating a tight budget, tighter schedules, and the occasional early morning meltdown.

According to Chopra, Bachchan did not charge a single rupee as upfront payment for Eklavya. The role was written with him in mind, and he took it on without a fee.

Things got interesting when it came to logistics. Bachchan's team requested a hotel room that cost ₹65,000 more than the allocated budget for his stay. Rather than push the production to cover the difference, Bachchan simply paid for the room himself.

Then, when the Rajasthan shoot wrapped and the actor wanted a private plane back to Mumbai, Chopra turned him down because the budget could not stretch that far either. Bachchan chartered his own flight from Jodhpur, and in a detail that is almost too good, Chopra and his wife Anupama ended up hitching a ride on the very plane he had refused to pay for.

Chopra even said, he had not paid Bachchan for the film, and yet the star gave him one of his first ever private plane experiences.

Chopra revealed that this was precisely why he later gifted Bachchan a Rolls-Royce worth ₹4.5 crore after the film was completed. It was his way of thanking the actor for shouldering costs that the production simply could not cover.

When Bachchan arrived in Rajasthan for a schedule that was meant to last over a month, he showed up with surprisingly little luggage. Chopra asked why, and Bachchan explained that his wife Jaya was convinced the two men would clash and that he would be home within a week.

"Jaya has sent all my things. She is sure I will be back in a week and believes we can't work together," Bachchan reportedly told the filmmaker.

As it turned out, she was very nearly right.

Chopra needed to wrap the entire shoot in just 37 days and was using two cameras to speed things up, which was uncommon at the time. So when Bachchan was late on the very first day and Chopra missed the early morning light he needed for a shot, tensions rose immediately.

The second day, the same thing happened. By the third day, when Bachchan still was not on set and the light was slipping away again, Chopra lost his composure entirely. He climbed down from his crane, spotted Sanjay Dutt standing nearby, and told him to put on the Eklavya costume. Dutt, who had been cast in a different role, was about to become the lead. Chopra declared he was done with Bachchan.

He asked his line producer how much had been spent so far. The answer was ₹1 crore. His response was blunt: write it off.

Just as Chopra was fuming outside Bachchan's room, the actor walked out. There was a long silence. Then Bachchan walked over to Anupama Chopra and asked, "How do you live with this madman?" She laughed, he laughed, and the entire set dissolved into laughter with them.

Bachchan then explained the actual reason for his tardiness. The prosthetic beard required for his character was taking far longer to apply than anyone had anticipated. The process was uncomfortable, the makeup artists were, by his account, not the freshest smelling, and the whole ordeal stretched for hours each morning. His point was simple: if the beard was not right and he showed up on set looking off, Chopra would have screamed anyway.

Chopra's fix was characteristically direct. He told the makeup team to bathe with Dettol. The next morning at 4am, he heard Bachchan yelling from his makeup room. The actor later told him the room smelled like a hospital ward.

But it worked. That day, Bachchan arrived on set a full hour early. When Chopra asked why, Bachchan's reply was perfectly dry: "I don't like to be shouted at, sir. I was playing it safe."

Beyond the logistics and the on-set drama, Chopra shared a quieter moment that ended up defining Eklavya's lead character. During a car ride together, Bachchan opened up in a way that stayed with the filmmaker long after.

Bachchan told Chopra he was a blessed man because he could express whatever was in his heart freely. Then, tapping his own chest, the actor said that everything stayed bottled up inside him and never came out.

When Chopra pushed back and reminded him he was Amitabh Bachchan, the reply was simple: "Nahin nikaal sakta, yaar. (I can't let it out, my friend.)"

That vulnerability became the emotional foundation Chopra built the character around.