Actor Adi Irani has worked in many big movies and his face will always be familiar due to his long body of work. He has been a part of movies like ‘Baazigar’, ‘Dil’, ‘Beta’, ‘Raja’ and many others. In a recent interview, Irani has recalled some anecdotes on some of his movies. For instance, ‘Dil’ which was unexpectedly a huge hit. It was unexpected as both Aamir Khan and Madhuri Dixit had a long list of flops before this. They had so many flops that producers used to tell everyone to not cast them.
Adi said during a podcast on Filmymantra Media, “Six-seven films of his flopped in a row after Aamir Khan’s first film. He was considered a flop hero. The producers used to say, ‘Don’t take him. Don’t know whether his films would work or not.’ That was the case for Madhuri Dixit as well. She had signed a lot of big films, but one-two didn’t work and the others were not getting completed.”
Moreover, Anil Kapoor was earlier supposed to be cast in ‘Dil’, but Indra Kumar didn’t get his dates. “On his elder brother and producer Boney Kapoor’s insistence, Anil agreed to do Beta, but didn’t have dates for the film for a year. Then Anil Kapoor told Indra Kumar, ‘You do one thing. Make a small-budget film in the meantime. You’ll also get an experience being a director too.’ So he started Dil, in which he signed Aamir Khan and Madhuri Dixit. He was thinking, ‘Let me make a small film with these too. Let’s see if it works,’” he said.
‘Dil’ turned out to be a huge hit. But intially Sridevi was approached for ‘Beta’. “But Sridevi didn’t work with new directors. She was approached for Beta through Anil Kapoor. But she said no to him. Indu ji was already doing Dil with Madhuri, so he signed her for Beta too. So that was another minus point. Why? Because Dil hadn’t released by then. And Madhuri was already signed for Beta. So Anil said, ‘Sridevi said no, so instead of signing a big heroine, you’re signing Madhuri Dixit. Everything is a minus in your film.’ But all the minuses turned out to be pluses for Beta.”
Adi further added that when ‘Dil’ became a huge hit, director Indra Kumar was worried if ‘Beta’ will live up to that. Anil was also playing a village boy in the film. But eventually, ‘Beta’ turned out to be a bigger hit than ‘Dil’.
