Dharmendra: An Underrated Actor

 He was a very under­rated actor. He didn’t of course need the ac­colades. He got all of it, and much more, from people and the box office. But as an actor, he didn’t get all the accolades he de­served. He was such a big star that sometimes people didn’t realise what a great actor he was. He had such a varied range. He did many big mainstream films, but he also did many classic gems. My hope is that people will—and I think this will definitely happen—go back to many of his old classics, the mov­ies he did in the ’60s, and they will rediscover him.

When I went to him to narrate the script of Johnny Gaddaar (2007), I was quite nervous. Here was this superstar, and I had this very lurid pulpy film for him. I even told him how nervous I was. And he told me that that was good. A little ner­vousness is good for the film. He really loved the script, and listened to the film’s narration intently. I got worried during the narration because his character dies by the end of the first half in the film, and I didn’t know how he would react to that. After listening, he told me there was something missing in the second half. I thought maybe he’s saying that because his character does not make it to the second half. But he was right. Later when I went back to the writing table and spoke to others, I realised that. And on his suggestion, I introduced the char­acter of the inspector, which would be played by Govind Namdev.

For ‘Ikkis’, I had narrated the script to him long back, and he had really liked it, and would often ask me about it. But then the pandemic happened and I also got involved in another film. When we began shooting, we filmed our scenes first with him, and we did the shoot in different locations. He was perfect­ly fine then. I was able to show him about 70 per cent of the film, and he liked it. I told him that he would have to watch the full film once it was complete. With his passing, that I couldn’t show the full film is now my biggest regret.

–– As told to Lhendup G Bhutia