Superstar Rajinikanth on Monday revealed that although Amitabh Bachchan had asked him not to enter politics, he could not follow the advice due to certain circumstances.
The 69-year-old actor has announced plans to contest the next Assembly polls in Tamil Nadu, slated for 2021.
At the trailer launch of his next film, Darbar, Rajinikanth said he finds Bachchan a huge inspiration and recalled the three advices the megastar offered him when he entered his 60s.
“I am inspired by Mr Amitabh Bachchan, on and off screen... He told me three things that he practises. The first thing he told me was to exercise regularly. The second thing he told me was to be busy… ‘Just be busy. Do whatever you want to do. Don't be bothered by what people say’,” he said.
“The third thing was, 'don't enter politics'. The first two I follow but the third advice, I couldn't follow due to circumstances,” the actor told reporters.
Rajinikanth was speaking at the trailer launch of Darbar. Directed by AR Murugadoss, the film features Rajinikanth as a police officer, a role he is donning after 25 years.
When asked what took him so long to play a cop again on screen, Rajinikanth said, “I like to do easy-going, happy-go-lucky character. A cop is a serious character, chasing criminal. So I used to avoid. But Murugadoss came with a fantastic subject. This is not an ordinary routine cop character. He has extracted a different work from me.”
The film, also starring Suniel Shetty, is scheduled to release on January 10, 2020.
When he was asked a genre or a role he would like to explore, he said he would like to play a transgender person on screen. “Actually, I've explored all. It has been 45 years, 160 films... So everything has been covered,” the actor added.
The film is backed by Lyca Productions, the banner which was also behind Rajinikanth's science-fiction and action flick 2.0.
The trailer for Rajinikanth's Darbar, directed by AR Murugadoss, was released on Monday and has received more than 91 lakh views so far.