When Mukesh Khanna started his acting career, he was called Amitabh Bachchan’s copycat due to the similarities in their mannerisms. This tag was given to Mukesh Khanna right from his debut in the 1981 film, Roohi, and angered the actor, who was trying to create a name for himself.
Speaking to Bollywood Thikana, Mukesh Khanna said, “Media once called Mithun Chakraborty, ‘Gareebo ka Amitabh Bachchan.’ I don’t know how he reacted but if I was told that, I would’ve said, ‘Shut up.’ They would say, ‘You look like Amit ji, you copy him.’ A string of my films flopped which is why people said that. Here, only success speaks the loudest. When Mahabharat happened, no one gave me the label of Amitabh Bachchan, which happened a lot during my film career.”
He mentioned, “People would say, ‘You weren’t successful because you look like him and now that Amitabh Bachchan himself said that you copy him, your career is over.’” Mukesh recalled Amitabh Bachchan’s comments and said, “He did say that, but will I be a flop because of that? Amit ji kaun hai jo mere career ko rok sakte hai? (Amit ji can’t stop my career). A friend of mine had told me how he was watching a film with Amit ji. It was a drive-in theatre, and he was on the bonnet. When my ad came, he saw it and said, ‘Saala copy karta hai.’ Years later, some YouTubers took the quote and wrote Amit ji’s one line destroyed my career.”
“Every actor is inspired by some other– Manoj Kumar, Rajendra Kumar were inspired by Dilip Kumar, Shah Rukh is heavily inspired by Dilip saab too. Even the initial roles of Amitabh Bachchan were inspired and why not, because you take in from what you see. There is nothing in that But if you do mimicry in your films, then you will be destroyed. Which is what I didn’t do,” he added.
Mukesh Khanna eventually managed to make it big and ruled Indian television as the superhero, Shaktimaan, for several years.
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