A 1997 BBC interview with Amitabh Bachchan has resurfaced, and its most telling detail is a fallback rather than a film role: before stardom, the actor carried a driving licence because he was prepared to drive a taxi if acting failed.
“I came to Bombay with my driving licence and hoped that if I was unable to become an actor, I would at least become a taxi driver,” Bachchan said in the interview.
A leading man the industry said no to
The conversation also returned to Bachchan’s early rejections. His height and lean build did not fit the era’s expectation of a Hindi film hero. Bachchan described the verdict himself: “too tall to be playing a leading man, too thin, and just unlike a leading man of the Indian cinema.”
Asked about family, he said his parents supported his ambition. His father was the Hindi poet Harivansh Rai Bachchan. “They were very supportive to everything that I was doing,” he recalled.
A firm denial and an older connection
The interviewer raised Bachchan’s reported closeness to Sanjay Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi. Bachchan rejected the suggestion that Sanjay Gandhi called producers in Bombay to ask them to give him a chance, saying: “No, that’s totally false.”
He located the relationship in Allahabad, now Prayagraj, where the families had longstanding links. Bachchan said Sarojini Naidu introduced his father to Jawaharlal Nehru, beginning an association that continued for years.
The second fall
The Economic Times piece links the 1997 interview with a later, harder chapter. Amitabh Bachchan Corporation, launched in 1995, entered film production, distribution and entertainment events. Mounting losses and unpaid liabilities pushed the company toward collapse. By the late 1990s, Bachchan faced debts reported at nearly Rs 90 crore, plus legal disputes and creditor pressure.
In a later interview, he recalled that the crisis left him without work or money despite decades of fame.
KBC as the turning point
The recovery began around 2000 with Kaun Banega Crorepati. Television was then an unconventional platform for a superstar, but Bachchan later described having no films and no money when the offer arrived. The show became a turning point.
A role in Yash Chopra’s Mohabbatein, along with television and advertising assignments, helped him rebuild and repay creditors. The success of KBC also shifted assumptions about what a major film star could do on television.
Why it matters
For readers who follow Hindi cinema’s history, the clip captures how fragile stardom can be. Bachchan’s early identity as an outsider—too tall, too thin, with a taxi fallback—became part of his legend. The ABCL collapse showed that even a towering career can hit a debt crisis. The KBC comeback remains a reference point for reinvention because it used an accessible, weekly platform to rebuild trust and cash flow.
- Early Bombay: He carried a driving licence, ready to drive a taxi if acting did not work.
- Rejection: Producers found him too tall and too thin for a leading man.
- ABCL: The 1995 venture collapsed under nearly Rs 90 crore in debt by the late 1990s.
- Comeback: Kaun Banega Crorepati around 2000, followed by Mohabbatein, helped him rebuild.
Source: The Economic Times
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