Dharmendra accidentally fired real bullet at Amitabh Bachchan on Sholay set, says Ramesh Sippy: ‘Bullet wizzed past Big B’

What followed was a dramatic fallout, with the film’s action cinematographer refusing to shoot altogether.

Sholay released in 1995.

Just a couple of years ago, we witnessed an incident in which Hollywood actor Alec Baldwin fired a prop gun containing live ammunition, killing the film’s cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on the sets of Rust. The tragedy spiralled into a prolonged legal process, sparked severe backlash against the actor, and reignited a global conversation about on-set safety. Now imagine a similar incident occurring on the sets of Sholay. In this case, it was Dharmendra holding the gun, and Amitabh Bachchan was the unintentional target. He escaped death by just half a centimeter. What followed was a dramatic fallout, with the film’s action cinematographer refusing to shoot altogether.

Director-producer Ramesh Sippy recently recalled the incident in an interview with News18 SHOWSHA, saying, “It happened while filming the climax.”

He explained, “That was the one in which he picked up the bullets, stuffed them in… and in this shot, he was not supposed to fire… He was just expected to load the gun. But what he did was put the gun up and fired, Amitabh Bachchan was standing up there as it was his position–at the edge of the cliff and the bullet wizzed passed him.” Sippy added that the incident infuriated the action cameraman.

“Jim Allen–the action cameraman said I will not shoot. He said if actors behave like this… it can’t happen on my set. I don’t want any accident to take place. That day, the shooting was cancelled and we obviously looked after him–cooled him off. We made Dharmendra also understand that its okay to get into the mood, but you cannot shoot when there’s possibility of accidents. He understood. He apologised to Jim and Amit Ji. They worked it out. Obviously, it was not intentional, it just happened.”

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Sippy also recalled another incident that left the entire crew deeply worried, when both lead stars mysteriously went missing without any indication of where they were. Apparently, their car broke down and they took a rickshaw to return to the hotel.

“We got worried. We didn’t know what to do. We couldn’t understand if they were on a mischievous trip or if they were lost in the jungle. We didn’t know if we should start looking for them. We set out to try and look for them and finally, a couple of hours later they turned up. I think they had a good time with a couple of drinks. But they were back and intact and everything was fine.”

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This was not Amitabh Bachchan’s only brush with death. In 1982, the actor suffered a near-fatal accident while shooting Coolie in Bangalore. He was severely injured during a fight sequence with co-star Puneet Issar. A heavy punch caused internal bleeding, after which Bachchan was rushed to the hospital, where he was briefly declared “clinically dead” before being revived. It was a moment that brought the entire nation together in prayer for his recovery.

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