Not Amrish Puri, But Anupam Kher Was Originally Offered Mogambo's Role in 'Mr. India'

Actor Anupam Kher says he was the first choice to play the role of Mogambo in Shekhar Kapur's 1987 directorial Mr. India.

Remembering actor Amrish Puri on his 87th birth anniversary on Saturday, Anupam said: "Amrish Puriji was a really good friend of mine. It feels really sad to talk about your friends who are no more in this world. He was a remarkable actor."

Google on Saturday celebrated the life and legacy of Amrish Puri, known for portraying iconic roles like Mogambo in Mr. India and Chaudhry Baldev Singh in Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge, on his 87th birth anniversary.

"In ‘Mr. India', Mogambo's role was offered to me before him but after one or two months, makers of that film replaced me with Amrish Puriji," said Anupam, who was promoting his film One Day: Justice Delivered in Mumbai on Saturday.

"When you are dropped from a film then generally an actor feels bad, but when I watched ‘Mr. India' and saw Amrishji's work as Mogambo then, I thought that makers of the film took the right decision by casting Amrishji in their film," he added.

Appearing in more than 200 films in over half a dozen languages—including Hindi, Marathi, Kannada, Punjabi, Malayalam, Telugu, Tamil, and English — Puri is considered one of the best villians in the history of Bollywood.

The legendary actor gave one of his most memorable performances at the age of 55. Playing Mogambo in the 1987 cult classic Mr. India, Puri’s deep-voiced delivery of the dastardly line “Mogambo khush hua” (“Mogambo is pleased”) would become his signature.

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