Mukesh Khanna told Ekta Kapoor that she ‘ruined’ the Mahabharata with her show: ‘Ronit Roy had no reference, Draupadi had a tattoo’

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He added, “The casting wasn’t done properly. Ronit Roy was a star in that era, so he was given Bhishma’s character. He might have not even read the Mahabharata, I don’t know. Because, I remember that I read in a newspaper, when someone asked him if he would watch Mukesh Khanna’s earlier performance, he replied, ‘No, I don’t see anybody’s performance’. I felt good, chalo confident actor hai (he is a confident actor). I was impressed.”

He continued. “When the serial came out, he had a band tied on his forehead, he was looking like Sikandar, not Bhishma. Pitra bhakti nahi thi. There should be a belief from within when you see a character, but I didn’t feel that. Read the Mahabharata first. It is an epic, you have to live the character. Somebody came and told me, ‘The guy who is playing Bhishma is trying terribly to copy you’. I said, ‘What will the poor guy do? He has no reference’.”

Kahaani Hamaaray Mahaabhaarat Ki was a television series produced by Ekta Kapoor and Shobha Kapoor under their banner Balaji Telefilms and it aired in the year 2008. Accusing Ekta Kapoor of having ‘ruined’ the Mahabharata, Mukesh said, “I told Ekta, ‘Tune Mahabharat ka satyanash kar diya (You ruined it). Draupadi had a tattoo in it! I flared up after seeing that. There was no honesty in that show.”