Choreographer-turned-director Farah Khan is currently in London for the 17th London Asian Film Festival.
The Happy New Year director today attended a choreography masterclass at the Southbank Centre and a sing-along screening of Om Shanti Om starring Shah Rukh Khan at Prince Charles Cinema in the West End.
At the master class earlier today, Khan clarified that it’s a myth that she worked for veteran choreographer Saroj Khan during the making of Aamir Khan starrer Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikandar. In fact, Farah was assisting the director, Mansoor Khan, and only took over as the choreographer once Saroj Khan walked out.
Farah also recalled how the same almost happened during the making of the iconic Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge. “Aditya Chopra and Shah Rukh Khan called me from Switzerland and asked me if I can come the following day to shoot a song for them because Saroj Khan had not landed up on set. As much as I wanted to go, I was committed to doing a song with, hold your hearts, Nana Patekar. I couldn’t cancel that shoot as it would have been unethical and told them [SRK and Aditya Chopra] that it would be the same thing that she [Saroj Khan] did to them. I think, she found out that they called me and thought ‘This can’t happen again’ and ended up doing the song in Switzerland. However, Aditya later asked me to choreograph ‘Ruk Ja O Dil Deewane’ at a set in Mumbai.”
In an interview with Bollywood reporter Sunny Malik, Farah also said that if Shah Rukh Khan asks her, she will go back to choreography for his next home production, Dilwale, directed by Rohit Shetty. “I have just seen on Twitter that they have started filming for Dilwale. If Shah Rukh asks me to do a song for the film, I will do it,” said the director who has directed the world-famous actor in Main Hoon Na, Om Shanti Om and most recently in Happy New Year.
However, Farah Khan has no interest in choreographing movie songs otherwise. “It has been twenty-three-years. I’ll do a on-off song now and then. But I don’t want to continuously do choreography.”
