Did you know Soumitra Chatterjee turned down Bollywood classic ‘Anand’?

In a six-decade-long illustrious career, Soumitra Chatterjee who passed away on November 15, 2020 remained one of the most successful stage and film actors, working with almost every renowned director. Interestingly, he never said yes to Bollywood. So, despite being one of Indian cinema’s elite actors he was mostly unknown to a major portion of the Indian audience.
But only a few people know Soumitra Chatterjee once turned down offers from as many as three Hindi films from renowned directors which eventually became big hits.
During an interview with ETimes the veteran actor had shared, “Hrishikesh Mukherjee in his 1971 film ‘Anand’ approached me to play the role of the famous character Dr. Bhaskar Banerjee. I had to say no because the shooting dates clashed with my commitments with Bengali cinema, but I have no such regrets for not accepting the role.”
We all know Amitabh Bachchan played the doctor’s character in Rajesh Khanna starrer ‘Anand’ which turned out to be his first major hit.
“The next film I refused was Shyam Benegal’s 1981 ‘Kalyug’ which is a modern-day take on Mahabharata. Kalyug was produced by Shashi Kapoor and he played Karan (Karna). Shashi offered me the character Dharam Raj (Yudhisthira) but I said no because I felt it’s not strong enough for my first Hindi film. Shashi and I were close friends and we always admired our professional decisions, so Shashi didn’t press me to do the role,” Soumitra added.

The role of Dharam Raj was eventually offered to Raj Babbar.
The veteran actor said the last one happened recently, “More recently, I turned down n offer from Aniruddha Roy Chowdhury’s ‘Pink’. I was offered a judge’s role but once again it didn’t have enough scope for acting.”
The role of the judge was eventually played by Dhritiman Chatterjee. The 2016 Bollywood flick ‘Pink’, made at a budget of 23 crore, earned a staggering 107.32 crore in revenues winning widespread critical acclaim.