Everyone who ever worked with Irrfan Khan will share stories about his skill as an actor and how he owned every frame, but the late actor Rishi Kapoor didn’t agree with all this praise at one point. Rishi was reportedly not satisfied with Irrfan’s style of acting while working with him in the crime thriller D-Day (2013), and he was quite vocal about this with the director Nikkhil Advani. While Irrfan passed away on April 29, 2020, Rishi Kapoor died a day after on Aprilo 30.
Advani revealed in a conversation with film critic Rajeev Masand that Rishi Kapoor had very different expectations from Irrfan and was not used to his way of working. “When they came together, Rishi Kapoor had heard that Irrfan Khan was this great actor. So he wanted to see it, and fortunately for me, they were doing this one scene where Irrfan decided to improvise. And Irrfan never ever gives the same cue again. So Rishi Kapoor called me and said, ‘Usko samjhao, usko acting nahi aati hai (Talk to him, he doesn’t know acting).”
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The director talked about how Irrfan used to finish each take in a different way, and hence the Karz actor could not identify his cue to start speaking. “I told him, ‘Sir, you don’t have to worry. You start speaking whenever you want to speak; don’t worry about him.’” He also added that even though both the actors were very different, his experience working with them was special.
According to Advani, Irrfan and Rishi Kapoor reconciled when the former convinced him to stay the night in the desert with the promise of ‘chicken and alcohol’. In a conversation with Mid-Day, he revealed that Rishi Kapoor used to travel back and forth from the hotel every day, and the film required a sunrise shot, for which the veteran actor would have to start very early. “He was refusing to comply with a morning shoot, but Irrfan managed to convince him to spend the night in the desert with us with the promise of Chicken Jungli and alcohol. It was a near-impossible feat in Kutch, but he delivered his promise, and I got my shot.”
Apart from the two stalwarts, D-Day also featured Shruti Haasan, Arjun Rampal, Huma Qureshi, Nassar and K.K. Raina. Irrfan Khan played a RAW agent in the film, while Rishi Kapoor played the role of a don. Both actors passed away in 2020 due to cancer.
