Nana Patekar’s ₹1 crore and ₹1 fee story: Kamlesh Sawant

Nana Patekar’s death on October 8 at 75 has sparked a fresh wave of stories about the actor’s one-of-a-kind stardom. The latest comes from Kamlesh Sawant, the Drishyam actor who played Inspector Gaitonde, who recalled an unverified but delicious anecdote about how Patekar approached a film with Amitabh Bachchan.

The ₹1 crore and ₹1 story

Sawant told Pinkvilla that he never shared a scene with Patekar in the one film they worked on, and he regrets it. However, he had heard a story about the late actor’s fee: when the discussion was about working with Bachchan, Patekar reportedly said he would take ₹1 more than Bachchan.

Bachchan sahab ke saath main kaam karunga toh Rs 1 zyada lunga.

According to the anecdote, Bachchan was paid ₹1 crore, and Patekar took ₹1 crore and ₹1. Sawant was careful to add that he could not confirm the story’s accuracy. The line comes from his memory of what he heard; it remains an industry legend rather than a verified pay stub.

Why the anecdote sticks

It sounds like a tiny difference, but in Bollywood’s fee-driven ecosystem it was a statement. The late 1990s were a period when Bachchan commanded a reported ₹3 crore, while Patekar—after Krantiveer and Agni Sakshi—was reportedly charging around ₹1.25 crore. The two actors appeared together in the 1999 film Kohram. Some accounts describe Patekar as one of the highest-paid actors of his time, second only to Bachchan.

So a ₹1 gap was never about the money; it was about billing, respect and the refusal to be second.

Making the single-screen go silent

Sawant also located Patekar’s real power in his dialogue delivery. In an era when Bollywood leaned on music and dance, Patekar shifted attention to the written and spoken word. The actor recalled:

• Audiences at Ganesh Talkies and Jai Hind Talkies returned multiple times just to hear his lines.
• People clapped at his dialogues, a response usually reserved for songs or hero entries.
• Only two actors could make a single-screen crowd fall quiet—Amitabh Bachchan and Nana Patekar.

That hush, Sawant said, was a form of respect: viewers knew exactly when to stop talking so they would not miss a single word.

Beyond the showreel

Sawant’s own village, Koloshi Varchivadi in Maharashtra, had chronic water shortages. Patekar’s NAAM Foundation stepped in, and according to Sawant, the actor visited personally to help resolve the problem. “Now, we don’t have any water issues in our village,” he said. That, Sawant argued, is why Patekar was more than an actor—he was an active social worker.

Sawant also said the suddenness of Patekar’s death remains difficult to process, since the actor had not been known to be ill. His memory now moves between the legend of a one-rupee fee and the quieter record of a man who showed up for his people.

Source: The Times of India