Hyderabad: Filmmaker Vidhu Vinod Chopra, who has worked with Amitabh Bachchan in the 2007 release Eklavya: The Royal Guard, has shared an interesting story about how he denied paying huge hotel bills and charter flights for Big B but later went to his home to gift him a brand new Rolls Royce Phantom worth Rs 4 cr.
Chopra had written and directed Eklavya: The Royal Guard and being also the producer of the film who sent a message to Big B making it clear that he can't afford 65,000 Rs room and the actor should bear the burden and pay for the charter flight as well.
In a virtual interview with a webloid, when asked about the incident, Vidhu laughingly said, "Of course I made him pay for his room. I made him pay for the flight but you should also say that I gifted him a car worth Rs 4 cr."
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Narrating the incident, Vidhu said his mother was with him when he gave the car key to Big B and she was not very much pleased with her son's gesture at the time when he was using a blue colour frugal van for himself. Not knowing the actual price of the car, sitting beside him, Chopra's mom had assumed that the car gifted to Big B must have been around Rs 11 lakh.
On a related note, Chopra's Parinda had proved to be a turning point for actors Anil Kapoor and Jackie Shroff upon release in 1989, and the director worked with a greenhorn Hrithik Roshan in his 2000 film, Mission Kashmir. He launched actress Vidya Balan and director Pradeep Sarkar in Bollywood with his 2005 release, Parineeta. Chopra also gave Bollywood blockbuster maker Rajkumar Hirani his break in Munna Bhai MBBS (2003), and as producer backed Hirani superhits as Lage Raho Munna Bhai, 3 Idiots, PK and Sanju.
