Mumbai: Tigmanshu Dhulia says he originally conceived the idea of a biopic on “Mughal-E-Azam” director K Asif with late Irrfan and though the actor is no longer there, the filmmaker says he is determined to fulfill this dream.
Reflecting on their shared dream on Irrfan’s sixth death anniversary on Wednesday, Tigmanshu said he feels like the actor is encouraging him to complete the project from beyond. Irrfan passed away on April 29, 2020, at the age of 54, following his battle with a rare neuroendocrine tumour.
“The film on which I’ve been working for a long time and it all started with my conversation with Irrfan that we will work on this film someday, and we will make this film, it was a biopic on K Asif, the director of ‘Mughal-E-Azam’.
“I wanted to do this film with Irrfan and I know that Irrfan isn’t stopping me and is rather saying, ‘Make this film’,” Dhulia said at the special screening of “A Story That Refused to Die”, the documentary on “Paan Singh Tomar”.
The 2012 biographical drama chronicled the extraordinary life of titular national steeplechase champion, Tomar, who represented India at the 1958 Asian Games in Tokyo, before joining the army. He was forced to become a fierce dacoit due to land dispute at home.
“Paan Singh Tomar” is also among the most celebrated films in both Dhulia and Irrfan’s careers. The filmmaker said he met Irrfan at Delhi’s National School of Drama in the late 1980s and the two became friends.
Dhulia directed the actor in his 2003 directorial debut “Haasil” and later worked on “Charas” (2004), “Paan Singh Tomar” (2012) and “Saheb, Biwi Aur Gangster Returns” (2013). The director-actor duo redefined realistic storytelling in Hindi cinema.
“We would often discuss one scene, which was the spine of the film, and that would set the ‘sur’ of the film. That’s what I would do on every film that I did with him,” Dhulia said at the event.
The filmmaker also opened up about the films that could not be made like “Ghulami”, a period drama starring Irrfan, Sunny Deol, and Sameera Reddy. The work on the film was halted after three days due to budget issues.
Another such film was “The Killing of a Porn Filmmaker”, for which he had shoot for a week and even recorded songs with Sneha Khanwalkar, who later did “Gangs of Wasseypur”.
“For ‘Ghulami’, we had a huge set and we had started shooting. It was about my favourite period of history, 1857. We had got the weapons, costumes, actors from London, juniors, artists, horses, etc. After three days of shooting, the producer stopped the film because of monetary reasons. It was an expensive film and two years of our hard work came to a halt,” the director recalled.
Something similar happened with their first film “Haasil”, Dhulia said.
The film’s producers refused to submit the film for national award consideration following a dispute with them. Irrfan won the national film award for Best Actor for his performance in “Paan Singh Tomar”.
“The film usually is sent for National award along with money order but the producers had so much problem with me that they didn’t send it. In fact, had it been sent, Irrfan could have got national award for ‘Haasil’ but he won at awards like Filmfare and others.”
Interestingly, Irrfan was cast in “Maqbool” because of “Haasil”, Dhulia said.
“Irrfan had fooled me because no one was buying our film and he told me that he had spoken to a distributor. We had kept a trial (of ‘Haasil’) at Dimple (theatre) and after a while, he (Vishal Bhardwaj) came with 3 to 4 people, he saw it (film) and Irrfan got ‘Maqbool’.”
During the shooting of their second movie, “Charas”, Irrfan refused to shave his beard due to his commitment to “Maqbool”, according to Dhulia.
Recalling filming an action sequence for “Charas” in the crowded market of Chandni Chowk in Delhi, the filmmaker said, “I had a fight with Irrfan over him growing his beard. He was like, ‘I won’t cut my beard because I’ve to do Vishal’s film’, and I said, ‘How will we shoot?’
“He didn’t cut his beard and somehow shot the sequence hiding his beard, he was a ‘khatarnak’ actor and he would do such things. He has a beard in the movie, and one would not know that he has a beard.”
Dhulia also shared that Irrfan didn’t like the end of their last film together, “Saheb, Biwi Aur Gangster Returns”.
“We never had any serious fight. I’ve had multiple fights with him, where we would abuse each other but then we would be okay with each other the next moment,” he said, adding, Irrfan was his only friend in the film industry.
The filmmaker reminisced about their early days at NSD, where Irrfan was his senior.
“He was introvert, he didn’t have many friends, he was not that articulate, the way he was giving interview in this documentary. He grew and had he been there today, I wonder how much more he would have grown. He was not like how he was 20 years ago and I’ve not seen this quality in many people,” Dhulia recalled.
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