Amitabh Bachchan turned 84 on Sunday, and the tributes arriving from Hindi cinema feel less like birthday notes than like reminders of how long one career can hold an industry’s attention. Bachchan, one of the tallest stars of Indian cinema, has now worked across more than five decades.
At the Whistling Woods International annual festival Celebrate Cinema ’26, filmmaker Imtiaz Ali spoke about that legacy in personal terms. He was there for a session on his film Main Wapas Aaunga when he told PTI that he places himself in the Amitabh Bachchan era.
“There is nobody like Amitabh Bachchan and there never will be.”
Ali, known for Jab We Met, Rockstar, Tamasha and Love Aaj Kal, said he once believed he would never get a chance to work with the star. The barrier, as he described it, was not access but awe.
One ad film changed the equation
Ali said he entered the film industry thinking he would never work with Bachchan because he did not know what he could say to him. The shift came when he directed the actor in an advertisement film.
“I had the good fortune of doing an ad film with him. And then I realised that, ‘No, no. I can work with this gentleman, and I would love to, like any director.’ Hopefully, someday I’ll work with him,” he said.
The small-format shoot matters beyond the anecdote: it turned an institution into a potential collaborator. For a director, that reframe is often the difference between inheriting a legend’s image and actually contributing to it.
A director’s own milestone year
Ali is marking several personal and professional moments at once:
- 25 years in the Hindi film industry.
- Main Wapas Aaunga has performed well at the box office.
- Daughter Ida recently got engaged.
He said the love he has received from audiences has made him more conscious of his responsibility to them. “I want to give a gift back to the audience,” he said. He rejected the idea of creative pressure, calling filmmaking a rare privilege rather than an obligation.
Why the tribute resonates
Bachchan’s 84th birthday is a moment to see Hindi cinema’s continuity as a working asset, not just nostalgia. Directors such as Ali now sit between the industry’s foundational years and its next generation, and their public respect for Bachchan is also a statement about what audiences can expect from an Ali-directed film: a director who measures himself against the era’s defining figure and still hopes to add to that record.
For readers who track anniversaries and retrospectives, the birthday also brings a simple viewing prompt: Bachchan’s longevity means almost every generation has its own Amitabh Bachchan performance to defend. Ali’s framing—an era, not just a career—is a useful lens for rewatching those performances.
The open item is what a future collaboration would look like. Ali has not announced a project, but the ad film has already cleared the psychological distance. That makes a film with Bachchan less a fantasy and more a possibility with a known starting point.
Source: News18
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