From a dance tutor to one of the star filmmakers of Bollywood, Farah Khan Kunder has come a long way. The choreographer moved to direction in the year 2004 with her debut film Main Hoon Na. The film that is close to her heart stars Shah Rukh Khan, Sushmita Sen, Sunil Shetty, Amrita Rao, and Zayed Khan and was a blockbuster success. In a conversation with comedian and host Maniesh Paul on his podcast, the director-producer shared some unknown anecdotes about the film.
Shah Rukh Khan took multiple takes to shoot scene with Satish Shah
During their conversation, Farah Khan shared that actor Shah Rukh Khan couldn’t control his laughter while shooting the spitting scene with Satish Shah. Sharing that the megastar took five to six takes, Farah said, “The Shah Rukh Khan and Satish ji scene was very difficult to shoot. We used to make Satish Ji drink water and he would spit on Shah Rukh in that scene. We also kept a backlight to show it clearly. Shah Rukh couldn’t stop laughing in that take and he spent five-six takes laughing. Then I told him, ‘Karle na shot, he is spitting on you.’ This was also pre-covid so this was fine.”
Farah Khan reveals inspirations behind the characters in Main Hoon Na
From a hot chemistry teacher to a funny Hindi teacher, the movie had multiple unique characters. Farah Khan revealed that all the characters in the film were actually inspired by the aunties and uncles of her old society in Nehru Nagar.
She said, “We grew up in an old housing society in Mumbai called Nehru Nagar, and all the characters of Main Hoon Na were inspired by the aunties and uncles of that society. There was an uncle in that society who would spit while talking and Satish Shah’s character was inspired by him. We had an aunty and uncle who would speak English with a certain accent and we have used that with our characters in the film. My co-writer Rajesh Saathi was also from Nehru Nagar so we both took inspiration from people living in our society.”
As for casting Sushmita Sen as the attractive teacher Chandi Chopra, Farah said, “Every boy I knew, including my brother, had a crush on some hot teacher. So, we combined all those teachers and made the character of Chandi Chopra.”
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