Twenty-five years after Dil Chahta Hai redefined how a generation saw friendship, Farhan Akhtar has finally pulled back the curtain on how the film came together. In conversation with Anupama Chopra, the filmmaker revisited the casting battles, the music, Saif Ali Khan’s near-exit, Javed Akhtar’s stubbornness and even the one scene where Farhan finally lost his temper.
Looking back at the film’s impact, Farhan was characteristically matter-of-fact. “I feel that what Dil Chahta Hai writing embodied was what was happening around us all the time. It’s just that nobody was capturing it and putting it into a script or putting it into a film,” he said. “I just happened to be the right person at the right place at the right time.”
The film, he explained, came from frustration with the way friendship was being written. “Nothing really represented me, you know. Or my friends,” he recalled. “It was time to represent it the way that we felt it.”
The first surprise was the original casting. Farhan revealed that his dream trio was Akshaye Khanna, Hrithik Roshan and Abhishek Bachchan. “They were my dream cast,” he said, before adding that he eventually came to believe the roles had their own destiny. “Roles, films have destinies of who they get cast with.”
That destiny almost changed when Saif Ali Khan faced a date issue and considered leaving the film. “There was nobody else who could have played that part. It was just impossible,” Farhan said. With the shoot nearly ready, Aamir Khan told him, “You’re going to have to do it here. There’s nobody else.” Farhan’s reaction: “Me?”
The conversation also revisited Aamir Khan, who initially questioned whether Farhan could direct the film. Farhan confirmed it was true. His answer was simple: “Nobody else can make it the way I’m imagining it.”
His approach to the actors was equally revealing. Farhan believes improvisation only works when preparation comes first. “Improvisation is not possible unless you’re completely familiar and sure of the written material,” he said. “Just learn the scene, have that scene down pat, and then you can come there and do what you want.”
And then there was the Tara death scene. Farhan revealed that the camera ran out of film during the first take. “I had never yelled on set. I had never gotten angry on set,” he said. But this time, “I blew my top.” His frustration? “Why are you putting a magazine on that’s not full?”
Twenty-five years later, Farhan can also see the film’s flaws. “I think the one thing that I would change… I would probably resolve the Aamir and Preity relationship slightly differently,” he said, admitting that the wedding drama was “a little bit overplayed.” And Sid? “I don’t know if I would have left Sid alone at the end.”
Perhaps that is what makes the conversation so satisfying. Twenty-five years on, Farhan can look back at Dil Chahta Hai not just as the film that changed the way friendship was portrayed, but as a piece of work he can still dissect — its risks, instincts, mistakes and compromises included. And that, perhaps, is what makes revisiting the film so fascinating: even after 25 years, there is still more to discover in the story behind it.
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