I don’t see what’s wrong about a lead actor being paid more, says Amitabh Bachchan

On his birthday, Amitabh Bachchan, who turned 74 today, got vocal on many issues at a press conference.

Mumbai: Today, Bollywood megastar Amitabh Bachchan celebrates his 74th birthday. The actor held a press conference today here in Mumbai on the occasion of his birthday where he addressed a lot of issue, wages in Bollywood being one of those.

The actor was asked to express his views on a lead actor getting paid more to which the actor said that nothing is wrong in that.

"I hear a lot of people saying that a lead actor gets paid more. I don’t see what’s wrong in that. After all, he is getting paid more because his capacity to perform is on that scale. However, we had a fixed salary system back in the days," Amitabh Bachchan said.

When he was asked what his birthday wish is, the actor said, "I only wish to continue working and take up challenging roles in future as well."

On work front, the makers are currently working on 'Sarkar 3'. Talking about the film, Amitabh Bachchan said, "Sarkar was a really good film. Sarkar 3 is coming out as well. There are not too many changes in the new film; even the characters are almost same."

Apart from Dusshera and Big B's birthday, today also happens to be Girl Child Day, commenting on it, Big B said, "I am happy to say that time has changed. I see 75% women on film’s sets, working and progressing. I have always encouraged women. Today’s women are achieving greater things and they have my utmost respect for that."

When asked how his son Abhishek is performing his daddy duties, Big B said, "In my eyes, Abhishek is a great father. He spends a lot of time with his family at home."

The megastar feels there should be a book on various aspects of Indian cinema for everyone to be aware of our history, films and the legendary artistes.

"We don't have much documentation about our film industry. For the coming generation we should have something to tell them about the work of older or yesteryear artists, filmmakers and all. I myself would like to know lot of things," he said.

"Like what Raj Kapoor thought while making 'Bobby', 'Aawara', what was there in the mind of Mehboob sahab for 'Mother India', how Dilip Sahab (Dilip Kumar) worked in 'Devdas', or how and why a particular shot was taken in a film, all these things we don't know. Why a song was done in a particular manner, why certain kind of lyrics were written or why a particular costume was worn," he said.

Big B feels there is hardly any discussion on this and also one doesn't have any knowledge about cinema in detail.

"I feel books on all these things should be there as it will be an informative knowledge for us. Particularly when someone from abroad wants to write something about Indian cinema, they come across only gossip magazine's. They seem saddened as they want to know other things (besides gossip) about Indian cinema," he said.

"Here, we still don’t have the trend of documenting everything. Documentation helps us understand what goes around in an artist’s mind when he is creating something. If we had this trend, we would have known how Dilip Kumar worked. How a melodious song was brought to life, how a story on paper was turned into a film. We should know how art is created," he said.

Moving forward, the actor also got vocal about why a film is so rigorously promoted. "Now, a film’s faith depends on three days, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. So the publicity and marketing work is done on a bigger scale. Everything is available on phone, so producers have to rigorously promote their films."