Jimmy Shergill Got Rs 20,000 For Gulzar's Maachis: 'Reduced Taking Money From Home Post Mohabbatein'

Jimmy Shergill, who entered the Hindi film industry with a memorable performance in Gulzar’s critically acclaimed film Maachis, achieved fame for his role in the romantic drama Mohabbatein, starring Shah Rukh Khan. The actor, in a recent interview with Sushant Sinha, remembered the day he met Gulzar, who offered him a role in the movie. At first, Jimmy asked to be kept as an Assistant Director. Jimmy also talked about how much he was paid for the movie. In a chat, Jimmy mentioned that after finishing his film studies, he decided to stay in Bombay instead of going home. When he heard about the movie Maachis through his friends, he took the opportunity and asked Gulzar if he could work as an AD.

However, Gulzar asked Jimmy, “If you do acting, why do you want to come into direction?” To this, Jimmy said, “I have heard that here nobody gets a break until after five or six years and I don’t want to go home.” Gulzar asked Jimmy to read the script of the film and asked him to pick a role for himself. Jimmy said, “After reading the script, he asked, ‘Which role did you like? If you had to do a role, which would it be?’ I said, ‘I think I should do Jimmy. My pet name is Jimmy.’ I met him as Jasjit Shergill.”

The actor mentioned that he had to face a lot of criticism because the role was small. “I had to listen to a lot of taunts. A lot of people said things like ‘Are you mad? This is a small role. Wait for your time to come.’” Jimmy also spilled the beans on the paycheck for the film. “I think it was somewhere around Rs 20,000. I was lucky that my family was supporting me. This went on till I got Mohabbatein. Once Mohabbatein came, I slowly reduced taking money from home.”