Siddharth Anand, director of reflects back on the making of 2008’s romantic comedy Bachna Ae Haseeno, and talks with Subhash K Jha about the making of the film starting Ranbir Kapoor plus so much more.
Bachna Ae Haseeno came on the other side of your career when you made gentler non-action films, how do you look back on that phase of your career?
I look back at it with so much fun. I think there was just so much freedom, I was so carefree. I was working with friends, became friends with a lot of people, particularly there’s Bipasha, Deepika, Ranbir, who was already a friend.
So a lot of fun?
I think we had too much fun. It was a light film, it was a genre that I was really enjoying at that point in time. And every day was like, just going to have fun. It was like a party. And really, really enjoyed that phase of being just carefree and uninhibited. Bachna… is right up there in my repertoire of all the films.
Where do you place Bachna Ae Haseeno in your repertoire?
All of them, I think they are all special. And Bachna… is also right up there with them. It’s a film that had a lot of heart, a lot of fun, shot in so many beautiful places, such amazing songs, such an amazing cast. And my producer was so magnanimous in allowing us to shoot it all over the globe to give it the colour that we wanted and the way one it has. And I look back at it with so much fondness and so much gratitude that I could make a film like Bachna Ae Haseeno.
Of the three segments in Bachna Ae Haseeno, which is your favorite?
My favourite segment is actually the Minissha Lamba’s segment.I loved the chapter in Switzerland. It was just so much fun to shoot it, to watch it. Now when I look back at it, it was so cute. And also we had a ball of time to shoot it in Switzerland. And particularly what I love is the Jogi-Mahi chapter in the second half, the one we shot in Amritsar. And so that part is really, really close to my heart. And I so understood and empathized with Jogi’s character and Mahi’s character. It just made it so relatable and grounded. And the fact that what Ranbir makes her realize that the Raj she’s looking for is right in her own home. The man who loves her unconditionally is her Jogi, who’s her husband. It’s just so beautiful. That song Jogi Mahi is outstanding. I think Ahmed Khan did such an outstanding job in choreographing that song. Vishal Shekhar composed it, Anvita Dutt wrote it. It just all came so beautifully together. And the culmination of that story when he walks away while they’re singing and dancing.
You had a fourth chapter with Katrina and Ranbir planned which you never shot?
Katrina Kaif’s chapter was also a really cute chapter. She was supposed to play this really overweight girl that he falls in love with. And it was a really nice, very, very sweet chapter. But obviously it added too much length eventually. And we did the right thing in not shooting it.
Katrina was heartbroken?
Katrina was heartbroken, so were we. But in the larger picture, it was the right thing to do (scrap the fourth segment) because the film would have become very long.
Ranbir and you were best friends when you worked together in Bachna Ae Haseeno and Anjana Anjani?
Ranbir was an actor who just I had just so much fun with—so was Saif– because Ranbir was someone who just didn’t question. He just would follow everything and he would just do it so spontaneously and naturally. And I had somebody who just came to set and just sparked the camera with his spontaneity. And he was young. Bachna Ae Haseeno was Ranbir’s second film and he was eager to prove himself because his first film didn’t work. And it was just so much great energy on set that and I just look back at it. He was so young and carefree.
