Shatrughan Sinha Reveals Why He Rejected Sholay And If He Regretted Turning It Down When It Became Iconic!

One can't talk about Hindi Film Industry without mentioning some of its all-time classic films and Ramesh Sippy's Sholay is surely one of them. Sholay which featured Amitabh Bachchan, Dharmendra, Sanjeev Kumar, Hema Malini, Jaya Bachchan and Amjad Khan, was the highest-grossing Indian film at that time and no matter how many times one has watched it, one never gets bored of it. But did you know that Shatrughan Sinha was approached for Sholay too and he rejected the film?

When Himesh Reshammiya asked the 75-year-old actor about why he turned down Sholay on Indian Idol 12, the actor said that he was helpless because of unavailability of dates.

Sinha told Himesh, "During those times, I was continuously shooting for films which had two heroes and, somehow, we can call it a human error or my dates were an issue due to which I couldn't sign the film Sholay. I'm sad but happy at the same time as due to Sholay, national icon Amitabh Bachchan, who is my dear friend, got such a big break."

"Certain rejections of films occur due to date issues. Even Amitabh Bachchan wanted to do Kalicharan but he couldn't do it for a reason. It's generic in nature, even Rajesh Khanna, Shah Rukh Khan, Salman Khan, Sunny Deol must have rejected films for several reasons," added Sinha.

We wonder for which character Shatrughan was approached by Ramesh Sippy.

On a related note, Shatrughan is not very active in the film industry curently, but his daughter Sonakshi Sinha has already carved a niche for herself. Of late, Sinha shifted his focus to politics and currently, he is a member of the Indian National Congress.