Mumbai, Oct 20 (PTI) Veteran actor Asrani will always be remembered for portraying the dictatorial jailer in “Sholay” as it was a role he was born to play, says director Ramesh Sippy. Condoling the death of the actor at the age of 84 on Monday, the “Sholay” director said Asrani looked “absolutely fine” when they met recently. “It (death) feels sudden… He has done a lot of work but it stands out. I will remember him for a long time. It is a role he was born to play. But saying all this on a day like this doesn’t feel good. It feels maybe this is the best way to remember him,” Sippy told PTI in an interview. Asrani’s character in the movie, who turned 50 this August, was modeled after Charlie Chaplin in “The Great Dictator”. “Sholay” is written by the writing duo of Salim Khan and Javed Akthar. Sippy said he first worked with Asrani in “Seeta Aur Geeta” and he was impressed with the way the actor performed his scene. “Then ‘Sholay’ came up and this part was written by Salim-Javed and they discussed it with me. We all thought Asrani would be the right person. We called him, discussed it with him. He was very happy to come and do this role. He was part of the creation of that character,” Sippy recalled. The filmmaker praised Asrani for portraying the character of the jailer in the most “natural” way. “He played it naturally; it was like he was born to play the role. Hitler is the most popular person, about whom books were written, stories were told, the whole world’s attention was on him because of the way he carried himself, the murders that took place. “But a comic look at it (Hitler) was (great idea) … He worked so well that people remember it to this day. This character will never be forgotten,” said the 78-year-old director. Sippy said the character was beautifully written by Salim-Javed and he and Asrani managed to hit the perfect note during the shoot. “Salim-Javed had a way with words and it became a catch-line, and it caught on very well because of the caricature he was. Hitler is a German character, but instead of ‘Angreezo ke’, you can’t say ‘German’. We didn’t know how many people would understand it. It was improvised and the form it came out in seemed to be the right form,” he said. “The way the four of us managed to bring out the character, then actors like Amitabh Bachchan and Dharmendra ji in it, all together, it made the whole series memorable. The character is hard because the comedy is hard,” he added.
Asrani was born to play jailer in ‘Sholay’, role will never be forgotten: Sippy
