After Frozen, you have three films in quick succession—Luck, Acid Factory and Rajnikanth’s Endhiran. How come this sudden festival of releases?
It wasn’t planned like that. Normally, I do two films a year. Even at my peak, I never tried to do more than three films at a time. As an artiste who’s been here for about 40 years, I have a responsibility towards my fans who expect a certain kind of work from me. They have an image about me and to keep that going, I do selective work.

The buzz is that you follow a long list of commandments while signing a film, like you don’t work on Sundays or shoot in summer. True?
Oh, yes. No Sundays, only single shifts and no work in summer. I also only shoot outdoors in October. I made these rules in the beginning of my career after learning some hard lessons.
In 1971, I hit the big time with Mere Apne, Zaroorat and Dhund. I was totally unprepared for what followed next. I signed 48 films at one go. And then, the producers came to collect. I used to do three shifts—I’d shoot for one film at 7 a.m., go for another film’s shoot at 2 p.m. and then report for the third film at 7 p.m. I would be home at midnight, take my girlfriend to the disco, sleep for a couple of hours and then report to work. After six months of this hectic cycle, I collapsed. I was admitted in the hospital with a liver infection and was advised three months of bed rest.
That’s when I promised myself that I will never work like a machine. That’s when I made these commandments as you refer to them. I returned the signing amounts of 42 films and shot the other films in a reasonable manner. I’ve followed the rules since then.

In the Luck promo, you say that you got flak for your looks when you started out.
Yes, I was told yeh chinki aankhon wala launda nahin chalega or that I would only get Nepali/Gorkha roles. I was told that because of my facial features, I don’t look like any hero’s brother and that I should pack my bags and leave. The tide changed when producer N.N. Sippy offered me Fakira as Shashi Kapoor’s brother. Fakira celebrated 50 weeks and after that I played every hero’s brother.

Your three landmark roles (Bakhtawar in Hum, Khuda Baksh in Khuda Gawah and Kaancha Cheena in Agneepath) have all been in the late Mukul Anand’s films. Which one is your favourite?
Mukul and Rajkumar Santoshi are the only two directors with whom I’ve worked repeatedly. Both of them believe in sitting down with an actor and creating a character together. Mukul was something special. In Hum, the entire lullaby scene was my idea and he translated it so fabulously on screen. Of all these three roles, I liked Kancha Cheena the most. Recently, I loved my role in Frozen. Other roles that I like are the ones in Aitbaar, Kaanon Kya Karega and the Bengali film Lal Kuthi.

Not many people know that you’ve done playback with the likes of Lata Mangeshkar and Kishore Kumar. Why did you stop singing?
Yes, I’ve sung five songs. In Lahu Ke Do Rang, I did a solo Humse tum mile tumse hum. With Lata, it was Mera naam aao from Yeh Gulistan Hamara. With Kishore Kumar and Mohammad Rafi, I sang Naya Daur’s Paani ke badle pee ke sharab and Mujhe doston tum gale se laga lo respectively. And then, Asha Bhosle and I sang Sun sun kasam se from Kaala Sona. All the songs did well.
Then, one big director wanted me to sing a song for his film, the music of which was being composed by Lakshmikant-Pyarelal. I went for the rehearsal and realised that Lakshmikant was reluctant to have me on board as a singer. He kept making excuses that the tabla walah has not turned up or that the mic is not working. I got really bugged and said chodo, aaj se mujhe gaana hi nahin hain. Anyway, I had sung with all great singers so there was nothing left. Now I sing at home for my kids.

Is it true that you wanted to join the army?
That was the big dream. I would have been a retired Brigadier by now, puffing on my cigar. I was the best cadet in NCC from West Bengal. I had come to Delhi to participate in the Republic Day parade. I never wanted to be an actor. Since I was a bioscience graduate, I wanted to join the Armed Forces Medical College. But then, in the 1962 war with China, many soldiers from our village lost their lives. My mother refused to let me join the Army.
Since I was into dramatics and other cultural events in school, I filled the FTII form with the intention of specialising in music. Once I got there, I got to know that it’s an acting course. Nobody wanted to share my room in FTII and so I bunked with a student from Ghana. I stood first in the exams and then everybody wanted to be my roommate. I selected Anil Dhawan because he promised to make tea for me every morning.

Did Jaya Bachchan really give you the name ‘Danny’?
Absolutely. On my first day in FTII, our seniors Shatrughan Sinha and Navin Nishchol had come to rag us. We were asked to introduce ourselves. When I said my name is Tshering Phintso Denzongpa, they said, “Come again”. I repeated my name for half an hour and yet nobody was able to pronounce or remember it. That’s when Jaya suggested that I should have a pet name and came up with Danny. Somehow the name stuck.

Do you regret not doing Gabbar Singh’s role in Sholay?
Not at all. It was a decision taken with an open mind. My dates were committed to Feroz Khan for Dharmatma. I made Feroz bhai and Ramesh Sippy sit down together to find a way but the dates were clashing. I gave priority to Feroz bhai’s film since I had committed to him first. We had a lovely shoot in Afghanistan especially in Bande Amir which has a lake of three different colours in the middle of the desert.
If I had done Sholay, we would have missed a fantastic actor in Amjad Khan. Also, I benefitted the most from Sholay’s success. Amjad increased his price after the film which was good for character artistes like me. I increased my price by ten times.

What’s the experience of shooting Endhiran (Robot), the most expensive Indian film ever?
It’s an experience. I’m playing the main antagonist in the film against Rajnikanth’s double role. The film is pegged at a budget of Rs 175 crore. Director Shankar has pre-designed the entire film in animation. Now, they are shooting the live action. There is no scope of error. The planning is amazing and the impact will stun everyone.

How are the breweries doing?
Very well. Now, I own three of them in Sikkim. They are my real bread and butter. Acting has happened by the way.