3 min readNew DelhiApr 2, 2026 04:29 PM IST
Amitabh Bachchan was going through a rough patch when he was approached to host Kaun Banega Crorepati, which went on air in the year 2000. His films weren’t clicking with the audience like they used to, and his company, ABCL, had suffered significant financial losses. So much so that his company went bankrupt, and Bachchan himself was under a lot of debt. At the time, the idea of hosting shows on television wasn’t as popular as it is today, and in those days, film stars often maintained their distance from the small screen. In a recent interview, Tarun Katial, who was working with Star Plus at the time, said that Big B wasn’t keen on taking the project at first and had to be convinced over many months.
In a chat shared on TheSellSide’s YouTube channel, Tarun said, “It took us a significant amount of time working through the details with Mr Bachchan to be able to convince him. There were many times when he said that he wasn’t really keen.” He shared that around the same period, Bachchan made a few trips to the UK and realised that the original show Who Wants To Be A Millionaire was a huge phenomenon, and that made him interested.
“Lucky for us, Mr Bachchan took a few trips to the US and the UK and got exposed to Who Wants To Be A Millionaire there and realised how big the phenomenon had become in the West and that really convinced him to make the move. He realised it was worth doing,” he said and added that Big B “agreed over a period of time.” To keep the show as close to the original, the makers shot the first promo in the UK.
Althoug Amitabh Bachchan was a huge star at that time, he still made time to rehearse every single day, that too for months, before he actually shot for the first episode. “He used to come to the basement of our office and rehearse every single day for many months before he did the first shoot,” he said.
Previously, during the show’s 1000th episode Bachchan recalled the time when he started working on Kaun Banega Crorepati during his difficult times. “At that time, I had no idea what would happen. People would warn me that moving from the big screen to the small screen would harm my career. But circumstances compelled me to take this on. You see, I wasn’t getting any films at that time, but after the show premiered, the kind of reactions I received made me believe that the world was with me,” he said.
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