'Only temptation was my co-star': Jaya Bachchan blushes as she reveals why she did male-centric film Zanjeer with Amitabh Bachchan

On Tuesday, the docu-series Angry Young Men dropped on the Amazon Prime Video. The series was a trip down memory lane as Salim-Javed spoke at length about filmmaking, their struggles, journey of survival. Bollywood actors like Jaya Bachchan, Big B, Dharmendra, Salman Khan, Arbaaz Khan, Helen, and Honey Irani shared anecdotes from the life of Salim Khan and Javed Akhtar.

Not many are aware that the duo came into the limelight after their film Zanjeer and Deewar. Both the films starred Amitabh Bachchan. The films also introduced Indian cinema to the Angry Young Men genre.

Salim -Javed and the other celebs, shared that Zanjeer which was released in the 1970s was a male-centric film and a lot of celebs during that era had declined the film, including Dev Anand, rejected Zanjeer because the script had no songs in it.

Trivia about Zanjeer shared by Salim-Javed and Jaya Bachchan who was the female protagonist 

Talking about how different the script of Zanjeer is, Salim said in the documentary, "A new hero stormed into the (Hindi) film industry after Zanjeer. This is a new hero. A hero who doesn't sing songs doesn't romance, doesn't break into comedy, bakwaas (nonsense) nahi karta hai. The other characters were doing all that. But not the hero."

While Javed Akhtar said, "You have to be honest to the character, without pushing the character according to the need of your plot. Then integrity grows into your character, and you can give it authenticity and a third dimension. Had we got Amitabh Bachchan to sing 2-3 songs in Zanjeer then today you wouldn't remember the 'Angry Young Man'."

"Every hero rejected the film. Director Prakash Mehra was producing the film, it was his debut production, but he didn't change the script even though we were not big-shot writers then. We became famous only after Zanjeer. He remained loyal to the script. It is easier said than done but one needs guts to do it," said Javed.

Sachin Pilgaonkar said that Dev Anand refused to be a part of the film. He said, "You'd remember how Vijay doesn't have even one song. This is the reason why Dev (Anand) sahab refused to act in it. He refused after hearing the script because he thought, 'The audience will not accept Dev without songs!'"

Jaya Bachchan says she did not want to be part of Amitabh Bachchan's Zanjeer

However, Jaya Bachchan, who was the female protagonist of the film, revealed that Salim-Javed forced her to act in Zanjeer even when she didn't want to be a part of the film, She revealed, "I didn't want to do Zanjeer. I basically never wanted to be a part of a male-centric cinema. Zanjeer was a male-centric film."

She later revealed that the reason she did the film was she would get to "spend some more time" with Amitabh Bachchan. She said, "Salim sahab and Javed sahab, they were very straight-forward. They had tried a lot of other women actors, but of course, they all had refused. And they said, 'you can't say no, we need you'. Of course, another temptation was my co-star. So I thought at least we'd get to spend some time together."

Zanjeer was released in May 1973, and Jaya and Amitabh tied the knot in June of the same year.

Currently, Jaya Bachchan is an actress turned politician. She has been serving as a member of the parliament in the Rajya Sabha from the Samajwadi Party since 2004. On the acting front, she was last seen in Rocky Aur Rani Ki Prem Kahani.

Meanwhile, Amitabh was last seen in Nag Ashwin's Kalki in 2898 AD. He is currently hosting Kaun Banega Crorepati.