Faridoon Shahryar's Blog


Tuesday, August 2, 2011

"Its A Line That Suits Aamir Quite Well": Farhan Akhtar

“I think as far as Aamir’s track record goes and his performances, I think it’s a line that suits him quite well,” said Farhan Akhtar in a video interview I conducted with him recently for a special feature on Dil Chahta Hai completing 10 years. And, what’s the line that we are talking about? Perfection ko improve karna mushkil hota hai. “It feels nice to know that ke pehli film jispe aapne kaam kiya tha woh logon ko 10 saal baad bhi itni pasand hai, itni yaad hai. It feels good,” Farhan said. Yes, DCH is remembered, not only for an entertaining storyline but also for wonderful performances and a superb technical team that worked in tandem to give a new direction to Bollywood at the turn of this century.

It was said at the time of the film’s release, that it was inspired by the real life friendship of Farhan, Uday Chopra and Hrithik Roshan. “There was a time when Uday, Hrithik myself and many other friends we used to go to Goa and spend wonderful time there. Some very funny and strange things also happened there.” Farhan also said, that there were reference points from his real life in DCH but several moments were fictionalized as well to keep the dramatic momentum flowing. Akshaye slaps Aamir in the film, it was said that something similar had happened between you and Uday. “No such thing. You do certain things for movies, you want to create a cinematic drama. Of course, there is drama in life but the kind of drama we are talking about did not happen in my life with my friends,” Farhan said.

Being the son of Javed Akhtar and Honey Irani, were things easy for you in anyway? “I really did not want my parents to get involved in helping me to get actors on board. The only person my mom helped me with, was Dimple, to get to meet her but apart from that, whether its Aamir, I really did not want them to do this film because they felt obliged to do it because of my father or my mother.” Did you have a Bound Script when you approached the actors? “I had a bound script, it wasn’t completely detailed but it was like a start to end story.”

Alright, Nakul Kamte did the sound design in DCH. He had earlier worked in Lagaan, so did Aamir suggest him for sync sound? “No, Nakul Kamte was suggested to Aamir for Lagaan by me. Nakul went up there and then got on to DCH,” It was the first film in sync sound for Saif, Akshaye, Preity and Dimple Kapadia.

Looking back at Dil Chahta Hai, is there anything you’d like to change about the film? “The only thing I would like to change if I had a choice but now I don’t is that probably I would not get Akshaye to meet that girl at the end of the film. I think I should have left him just with the friends. Somehow I wanted a slightly satisfying end, you know, bechara why should he be alone at that point, but when I see it now I really wish it would have been a much more heartwarming end for his character to just being with the memory of this women and how his friends were back. It would have been a nice end," Farhan said

These are only a few excerpts from a long interview that I’ve done with Farhan. We shall be paying a tribute to Dil Chahta Hai in a two part special feature on Bollywood Hungama as Farhan goes down the memory lane interspersed with some footage from the film. There will be 60 and 30 sec teasers of this feature that will start on BH from today. The first part of this feature will come on August 10th, the 10th anniversary of the release of Dil Chahta Hai. Hope you guys will like it.

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