Apoorva Lakhia has shared how he vented his frustration at Abhishek Bachchan after Amitabh Bachchan’s son initially declined to star in his debut film Mumbai Se Aaya Mere Dost following six months of discussions.
Talking to Friday Talkies, Apoorva shared that Pahlaj Nihalani’s son Vishal Nahalani aka Vicky offered to produce his first film and he arranged his meeting with Abhishek. The director added, “He is very interesting. When you go there at first, you get water. A week later, if he calls you again, you get offered a cappuccino. By then, you know you are progressing, and by the fourth or fifth meeting, you are offered dry fruits. This gives you a green light. And when he starts to offer you sandwiches and all, you know that we will shoot now. After six months, he called me and said, this film needs to be made but not with me. I got extremely mad at him and I just snatched my script from his hand and said, ‘No problem.’ And I left.”
Apoorva then stated that he got a call from Abhishek’s secretary a week later. “We went and sat, and to make me realise that he is a star, he made me wait for half an hour. This time, we were only offered water. He came and sat, and asked me, ‘Are you angry with me?’ I was like, ‘Of course, I am angry with you.’ I said, ‘You are Amitabh Bachchan’s son, you won’t have problems, he is Pahlaj Nihalani’s son, he won’t have issues, but I am somebody who needs to worry about my rent of Rs 7,000. I wasted six months of my life, if you were not interested, you could have told me so, I would have approached someone else.’ Because I took a stand instead of apologising, he respected me a little more and he agreed to do the film and since that day, we became best friends and his family has been very good to me”, the director concluded.
After Mumbai Se Aaya Mere Dost, Apoorva even directed Amitabh Bachchan in his next two films, Ek Ajnabee in 2005 and Shootout at Lokhandwala in 2007.
