Veteran Bollywood actor Shakti Kapoor has proven his mettle in the industry in a career spanning over four decades. Acing villainous as well as comic roles, his versatility as an actor made him one of the top character artists in the 80s and 90s. Shakti Kapoor’s breakthrough role was in the film Qurbani (1980), where he played the lead villain. The movie got him noticed by filmmakers and he was flooded with offers ever since.
The story of how Shakti Kapoor landed his role in Qurbani is an interesting one. He was struggling to get meaningful roles. He appeared in a few small roles and was roaming around studios with his portfolio in search of work. During one of these instances, while he was driving home after a failed attempt at convincing a studio, his car met with an accident with another. Both the cars had sustained some amount of damage.
Shakti Kapoor got down from the car, ready to pick a fight but was shocked to find out that the owner of the other car was none other than Feroz Khan. Shakti Kapoor immediately apologised to him and both went their separate ways. However later, Feroz Khan, who was looking for an antagonist for his film Qurbani, told his friends that he wanted the same guy, who crashed his car as the villain. He asked his friends to locate the person and this is how Shakti Kapoor landed his role in Qurbani, which turned out to be a game-changer for him.
Did you know that Shakti Kapoor’s original name was Sunil Kapoor? The name Shakti was given to him by Sunil Dutt when he cast him as the antagonist in Sanjay Dutt’s debut film Rocky, as he felt the name Sunil did not befit a villain.
After playing a slew of villainous characters, Shakti Kapoor transitioned to comedy with Raja Babu for which he won several awards.