Here's What It Took Farah Khan To Bring 31 Bollywood Actors On Board For Om Shanti Om's Title Song!

    Here's What It Took Farah Khan To Bring 31 Bollywood Actors On Board For Om Shanti Om's Title Song!

    It’s been 10 years since the release of Om Shanti and director Farah Khan opens up about all things crazy that happened during the shoot and after the release of the film. From Dev Anand refusing to be seen in a cameo to stars who appeared in the songs receiving a hamper worth Rs 1 lakh - Farah said it all in this interview with Anupama Chopra.

    She also shared the first photo shoot of Deepika Padukone for the film and wrote, “The 1st photo shoot of @deepikapadukone .. the 1 where i knew shes my Shantipriya.. #10yrsofOSO.. pic credit-@avinashgowarikar.”

    Om Shanti Om has a close connection to filmdom and there is a lot of thought that has gone into making this film successful. Speaking about this, Farah said, “The quirkiness and the madness in the film was about the legends in the filmdom that we have heard of. It was a very different kind of ode.”

    The scene where a young Sooraj Barjatya overhears the hook line of his film, Farah explained how Shah Rukh had said that it was a very in joke that no one would understand. “I don’t care, but this I want to put,” is what she told him.

    The highlight of the movie was the title song, which featured 31 actor including Dharmendra , Rekha , Saif Ali Khan , Salman Khan , Priety Zinta, Rani Mukherji and others. Farah explained how they had more, “but some didn’t land up. Fardeen got arrested at the Dubai airport. He was on his way to shoot for us. Aamir didn’t come.”

    She was then asked if it was true that Dev saab said no because he does only lead roles and Farah said, “He said that he doesn’t do cameos and I said thank you. And hats off to him, he doesn’t do.”

    So how did she pull it off? Did it just take a phone call? Well, of course not! “I had to make calls, meet them. Especially Manish Malhotra was of great help. All the heroines were happy that he was doing the clothes. And they all got to take their clothes home with them. Along with a very big gift hamper. Shah Rukh had made a hamper with Tag Heuer watch, and each got a blackberry phone. Everybody got a hamper of Rs 1 lakh. Oh and Mickey Contractor did the make up. They also got to hang out and have fun.”

    A lot of film was impromptu, and if you recall the sequence about the film awards, that was all on the spot too. In fact, Farah stood with her camera at the real Filmfare awards and had the actors say the lines. “Shabana’s dialogue in the film was decided on the spot by me. Akshay Kumar improvised, I did not know that he was going to beat up the girl and boy. It was all done by him on the spot,” said Farah.

    Another fun fact! Did you know that every time Shah Rukh took off his shirt to shoot for Dard E-disco, Farah threw up? She had to convince SRK that it didn’t have anything to do with his fab body, but that she had got pregnant during the third schedule. So the director used to feel nauseous all the time.

    Speaking about the clash with Saawariya at the box office, Farah said that things did get a bit out of hand, and it shouldn’t have. “It was because everyone wanted to come out on the same date. It was always the ego problem. It was the first time that my movie was clashing with somebody and Shah Rukh was very gung-ho and Sanjay was also very gung-ho and it just became really bad. In fact, I feel so bad because if they hadn’t released with us we would have been the first movie in the history of Bollywood to have collected Rs 100 crore,” she confessed.

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