Amitabh Bachchan reveals Salim-Javed suggested Yash Chopra’s name to direct Deewaar: ‘One wondered whether he would accept something like this’

Deewaar is considered a turning point for Hindi cinema. The 1975 film gave a huge boost to Amitabh Bachchan’s career, and proved Yash Chopra could direct films from any genre. Salim-Javed, who introduced the character of the ‘angry young man’ with 1973’s Zanjeer, were also declared the best screenwriters of the Hindi film industry after Deewaar. In the Netflix documentary The Romantics, Big B revealed that it was Salim-Javed who recommended Yash’s name as the director of Deewaar.

Before Deewaar, Yash had directed films like Daag, Ittefaq and Waqt and Amitabh shared that he was seen as a “new age” director who wanted to make “different films”. “Salim-Javed suggested that Yash should direct Deewaar. “Now Yash ji by that time had established himself as a director who worked more in beautiful sceneries, but Deewaar was very rugged and one wondered whether he would accept to do something like this,” Bachchan shared.

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Amitabh Bachchan recalled that in one of the scenes where his character Vijay was involved in an intense stand-off, the camera shifted to a bouquet of roses at the end of the scene. When Bachchan pointed out that this was a very serious scene, Chopra simply said, “Acha lagta hai (It looks good).”

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Salim Khan appeared in the documentary and said, “Lot of people thought Deewaar is an action film. In Deewaar, there is only one fight scene, otherwise that was a film of family drama.”

Deewaar was one of Yash Chopra’s first films with Amitabh Bachchan. The two later worked together in films like Kabhi Kabhie, Trishul, Kaala Patthar, Silsila, among many others. Amitabh even credited Yash Chopra for reviving his career with the 2000 film Mohabbatein.