Did you know that Shatrughan Sinha was late on the sets almost every day? His co-actors kept waiting and Sinha would walk in even more than 3 hours late! And perhaps to drive home his point that enough is enough, Shashi Kapoor once ran after him with a belt!
Talking to ETimes in the #BigInterview, which we carried yesterday, Shatru revealed the Shashi Kapoor incident, saying, ” Once, Shashi had come after me with a belt to hit me for coming late. I told him they had cast him because of his punctuality and me for my talent. He went, ‘Dekho, how shamelessly he says that’,” and added, “It was all in good humour, obviously. Shashi and I had a great camaraderie.”

Sinha defended that he was on time on certain occasions. “I was once shooting with Amitabh Bachchan and the call time was 4.30 am; I was there on the dot. For Gautam Ghose‘s film ‘Antarjali Jatra’ in Kolkata, too, I was up on time as we shot early in the mornings.”

However, he did not bat an eyelid as he soon went on to confirm that he was a Late Latif. “I didn’t go late deliberately. I was just very particular about doing a round of yoga before leaving for work which took time, so I was invariably late. I would sometimes report around 12 noon, maybe even 12.30 pm, for a 9 am shift. But I had a very sharp memory; still do. So, I would read my lines and finish my takes in one go. That way we could finish even before time. I was a one-take artiste. If another take was required on an odd occasion, I would tweak it slightly so that the filmmaker had the option to choose the better one. No producer could ever blame me for a film’s delay which explains how I have done 10-11 films with Manmohan Desai and 13 films with Harmesh Malhotra. Why else would these producers repeat me? Do you know I was offered ‘Sholay’, ‘Deewar’, ‘Satte Pe Satta’ and ‘Achanak’ too?”

We wonder what his co-stars like Dharmendra, Big B, Randhir Kapoor, Hema Malini, Neetu Kapoor, Zeenat Aman, Reena Roy, Poonam Dhillon and Anita Raaj have to say about Sinha’s late-comings.