When Rohit Shetty failed to understand how Amitabh Bachchan could hit so many fit people

Long before Rohit Shetty became one of Bollywood’s most successful commercial directors — known for flipping cars, over-the-top action, and larger-than-life heroes be it Ajay Devgn or Akshay Kumar or Ranveer Singh or Abhishek Bachchan— he was just a young boy tagging along with his father, veteran action director M.B. Shetty, on film sets. And one of the most vivid memories from his childhood involves witnessing the magic of cinema collide with the innocence of a child’s logic.

Recalling the moment during his conversation with Lallantop if he would go to sets with his father, Rohit shared, “Many times I went to film sets. I think… 1978, 1979. It must’ve been during Kala Patthar or Trishul. I saw Amitji doing an action scene.”

At the time, Amitabh Bachchan was already on his way to becoming Hindi cinema’s most iconic action hero — the Angry Young Man, taking on a battalion of goons, fists flying, justice prevailing. But for a young Rohit, still too little to grasp the artifice of film choreography .

“Amitji was slim, trim, and tall. And all the fighters of that time were six feet two inches tall. They were very strong. And Amitji was hitting them, and everyone was falling,” Rohit remembered, a grin on his face as he narrated the scene. “I thought it was a bit odd. How is this possible?.”

It wasn’t just curiosity — it was the first time the young Shetty was confronted with the unspoken cinematic rule: in the world of movies, the hero is always mightier than the mob.

Later that night, as they were heading home in a jeep — his father at the wheel, and Rohit sitting beside him — the question lingered in his mind. Unable to hold back, the boy finally voiced his confusion. “I got scared and asked him, ‘How can Amit uncle hit all these people? Because they are all so physically strong.’”

What came next was a lesson that would quietly shape Rohit’s own approach to cinema years later. His father, M.B. Shetty — a towering man known for designing some of the most iconic action sequences of the era — simply smiled, looked at his son, and said, “Because he is a hero and hero can do anything.”


Learning from her Rohit also added that is why his heroes also can do anything.