Yep, Sridevi was 21 and her co-star, Big B, was 21 years her senior.
Sridevi stated in the press that year, "My role in Inquilaab is very small. I had nothing much to do. But I was the only heroine in the film. I did not mind. It was a good break for me to work with Amitabh Bachchan."
The casting coup was consequential for many reasons. The first film Amitabh Bachchan had signed after his Coolie accident, all his earlier, regular heroines - Raakhee, Hema Malini, Zeenat Aman, Parveen Babi - had either married and/or moved on. Sridevi had scored blockbusters in 1983 and was the hottest young newcomer in Bollywood (Bombay press ignored her lengthy career in Tamil cinema as most editors weren't particularly cinema-literate but convent-educated with an ease in English and little to no knowledge of what was going on a state border across).
Himmatwala, Jaani Dost and Justice Chaudhry were smash hits that revived a flaying career of 'Jumping Jack Jeetendra'. Amitabh's heroine for the first time, it was news everywhere that the siren of the south was acting opposite Big B. This film literally started a new chapter in Amitabh Bachchan's stellar career.
The next generation of 20 somethings- Sridevi, Jayaprada, Madhavi, Meenakshi Sheshadri, Amrita Singh were the new heroines he constantly went on to star with during the 1980s, before his self-imposed (thankfully temporary) retirement from movies and a tragic tryst with politics in 1994.
With the adage rest is rust, till date, AB Snr remains the hardest working actor alive.
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