Actor, director, screen writer, singer – the talented Farhan Akhtar carries many different shades.
On the occasion of his 47th birthday, let’s have a fun throwback to his CULT CLASSIC movie ‘Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara’ .
Starring Farhan Akhtar, Hrithik Roshan and Abhay Deol in the lead, the fun and adventure-filled ‘Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara’ is a movie that redefined friendship. Directed by Zoya Akhtar, the comedy-drama showed the beautiful journey of 3 friends who go on a trip to Spain, learn to confront their fears and strengthen their bond with each other.
Here are 7 Interesting Facts About Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara:
1) Title Tales
The title of the movie was derived from Farhan Akhtar’s song ‘Rock On’ which had the lyrics ‘Zindagi Milegi Na Dobara’.
They were going to keep the phrase as it is but Javed Akhtar told them to structure it properly. Hence, the title was tweaked to ‘Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara’.
Interestingly, the initial title of the movie was ‘Running with the Bulls’!
2) Casting Chakkar
Farhan Akhtar was initially going to direct the movie and he had planned on roping in Shah Rukh Khan, Hrithik Roshan and Vivek Oberoi. However, that didn’t work out.
Later when the project was revived and Zoya Akhtar became the director – she offered Ranbir Kapoor the role of Arjun and Imran Khan was offered to play Kabir. But both of them turned her down and eventually Hrithik Roshan and Abhay Deol joined Farhan as the final casting.
3) Phobia Mismatch
Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara had an interesting contradiction up its sleeve. Farhan’s character in the movie – Imran Qureshi is shown to have acrophobia (phobia of heights). He confronts his fear by skydiving.
But in real life, Farhan is actually a certified skydiver! Even Hrithik Roshan, who played the aquaphobic (fear of water) Arjun, is a certified scuba diver.
4) Fake Tomatina Festival
“You can’t centre your film around Spain and not have the Tomatina,” Zoya Akhtar had said.
Since the famous La Tomatina festival that featured in the ‘Ik Junoon’ song was shot during the off-season, the makers had to recreate it from scratch with 16 tonnes of tomatoes specially flown in from Portugal!
Oooh la la to the tomato-throwing goodness!
5) Nude Mood
The Lloret De Mar, Costa Brava beach in Spain was also featured in the movie.
Zoya thought it was the perfect location to shoot Katrina Kaif’s introductory scene. However, on the day of the shoot, the beach was swarmed with NUDISTS.
The crew had to repeatedly stay on high alert to ensure the naked peeps didn’t enter and end up accidentally flashing everyone in the shot.
“I had kept the entire crew on high alert to keep away the nudists, who were getting in the frame. Soon, the crew got used to the drill, but it still took about three days to finish shooting the entire sequence,” Zoya had revealed.
6) Too Hot To Handle?
If you’re still drooling over the bronzed glow of the trio in the movie and being all ‘Omg so hot’, it’s because the poor dudes actually had to bear the heat.
Zoya reportedly wanted the entire cast to be authentically tanned – so the three would sit under the sun for HOURS.
Truly hot stuff.
7) Mr Dubey
Only the Mr the Dubey can taaalk like this! Remember this scene where they poked fun at a school teacher?
Turns out he had been Farhan’s P.E instructor back in school! He passed away in 2016.