Drishyam actor Kamlesh Sawant recalls Nana Patekar's Rs 1 fee story

Kamlesh Sawant, who played Inspector Gaitonde in Drishyam, has paid tribute to Nana Patekar with a story about the late actor's fee that he admits he cannot vouch for.

Sawant said in an interview that he once heard Patekar insisted on being paid Rs 1 more than Amitabh Bachchan to work alongside him. By that account, Bachchan took Rs 1 crore and Patekar took Rs 1 crore and Rs 1. "This is what I have heard, but I am not sure how true it is," Sawant added. The two stars shared the screen in the 1999 film Kohram.

Although he worked on a film with Patekar, Sawant never had a scene with him, which he said he sometimes regrets.

He credited Patekar with starting an era in which Bollywood's focus moved from songs and dance to dialogue. Sawant saw the craze first-hand at Ganesh Talkies and Jai Hind Talkies, where fans watched his films again and again. In noisy single-screen halls, he said, only Bachchan and Patekar could make a crowd fall silent, because viewers knew exactly when a big line was coming.

Away from the screen, Sawant spoke about the NAAM Foundation. He said Patekar came in person to fix a long water problem in his village, Koloshi Varchivadi in Maharashtra, and that the village has had no water trouble since.

Patekar died on October 8. He was 75. Sawant said the loss was hard to take in because the actor had not been ill. "He was very broad-minded," he said.