Amitabh Bachchan wears the TV tycoon garb

April 2 marked Amitabh Bachchan’s first day of shoot
for Ram Gopal Varma’s Rann. Amitabh plays Harshvarshan Malik, the founder of the
first private news channel in India. The entire cast and crew of Rann stood
frozen in silence for a very long time after Amitabh’s television speech was
shot.According to co-artistes on the sets, Amitabh read and analysed the TV
script based on communal riots, before adding his own lines. The speech was
originally written by Rohit Banwalikar. Explaining the situation on the sets
after Amitabh finished the shot, Varma said, “Mr Bachchan saw and absorbed the
dialogues. He loved the emotional plea against violence and spontaneously added
his own thoughts to it.

The end result was magnificent. Every time I work
with him, I feel I am discovering new facets to his personality. This man is
unbelievable.”Harshvarshan Malik’s character requires Amitabh to bring forth his
Hindi oratory skills. “Besides possessing the best voice in the business, Mr
Bachchan’s big advantage is that he’s equally brilliant with Hindi and
English.He has also sharpened his powers of expression through his blog. So now
when we shot a sequence where he was supposed to speak on a social issue he just
let it flow,” said Varma.

Confirming the story, Amitabh said, “The speech was
strictly for the camera. I’m working on the RGV film where I play the owner of
channel called 24/7. But public issues? No thanks!”