Amitabh Bachchan eager to take up challenging roles

Mumbai: Bollywood megastar Amitabh Bachchan, who turned 69 on Tuesday, expresses his keenness to do more challenging roles and constantly challenge himself as an actor.

"As an actor I want to be challenged, I want to do different kinds of roles, I don``t have the burden of the leading man and therefore the burden of commercial success riding on me which it used to earlier on," Bachchan told media persons here. "Now, there are other leading contenders associated with me in the film, so they bear the burden, yes I am also partially responsible for the film but I get the opportunity to play different roles," he added. Though the veteran actor has not had a favourable response from his fans on doing certain unconventional roles, he highlighted the feeling of being bit sceptical in playing the not so regular characters. "For an actor I think this is a negative- because for an actor we want to experiment with everything that comes but sometimes the audience tells you that we can``t expect you doing some thing like this. There were many films that they did not accept me in, `Nishabd` for example, Ram Gopal Verma`s `Ki Aag` for example; there are many such films where I felt satisfied as an actor, but the audience felt that I should not do such kind of films," said Bachchan. "So, now sometimes when I am getting a role, I sometimes think, gosh I hope the people are going to accept me in this, so that is a bit of a balance, it is a challenge also," he added. Bachchan further said that he was extremely pleased with the way Bollywood is progressing and inflow of young and hardworking talent in the industry. He said that he loves the enthusiasm shared by his colleagues at work. "I just hope to keep getting the opportunity to do good work with good people. I am now many years older than the current generation so when I go to the sets then I feel very weird. As there is an age difference of 30 to 40 years, which feels weird when compared to the average age on the sets that is between 25 to 30 years and I now entering the 70s. But I feel extremely happy on seeing their zeal and talent," he said. Meanwhile vibrant celebrations across the country by Bachchan fans marked the actor`s birthday. Bachchan rose to fame in the 70``s as the ``angry young man`` of Indian cinema, delivering iconic hits like `Deewar`, `Zanzeer`, `Sholay` `Sharabi` and `Don` among many others. He also rose to prominence in 2000 as the host of `Kaun Banega Crorepati`, the Indian version of `Who Wants to be A Millionaire`. ANI