Amitabh Bachchan says irritated Dharmendra fired a real gun on Sholay sets: ‘The bullet just missed my ear’

Actor Amitabh Bachchan has revealed an interesting piece of trivia about his iconic 1975 film, Sholay. The film, which recently completed 45 years, is considered among the most influential Hindi films ever made.

On the latest episode of his game show Kaun Banega Crorepati, Amitabh talked about shooting the climax with his co-star Dharmendra. He was speaking to a contestant, CRPF DIG Preet Mohan Singh, who had told the actor that he was a big fan of the movie. Singh had suggested that during the climax, Dharmendra should have picked up more ammunition which might have just saved Amitabh’s character Vijay’s life. Amitabh revealed that Dharmendra actually almost shot a real bullet at him during the scene.

“When we were shooting for that scene, then Dharam ji was down below and I was on top of the hill. Dharam ji opens a chest and picks up the ammunition. He did it once and was unable to pick up the bullets, did it again and failed again. Dharam ji got very irritated. I don’t know what he did, he put the cartridge in the gun and they were real bullets! He was so irritated about not getting the right shot that he fired the gun. I heard a ‘whooosh’ sound as the bullet went past my ear while I was standing on the hill. He had fired a real bullet. Main bach gaya (I was unhurt). So yes, there were many such incidents during the film and Sholay was indeed a special film,” he said during the show.

Sholay also starred Amitabh’s wife, Jaya, and Dharmendra’s wife, Hema Malini. It also featured Sanjeev Kumar as Thakur and Amjad Khan as the villain Gabbar. It was directed by Ramesh Sippy. In August, Ramesh had revealed that Dharmendra, Sanjeev and Amitabh had all wanted to play Gabbar in the movie. He said they were willing to give up on their hero image, but he had found his Gabbar in Amjad, who was roped in after Danny Denzongpa had quit due to his commitment to Feroz Khan’s film Dharmatma.

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