Director Mehul Kumar, who directed the 1993 patriotic action film Thiranga, recalled how wary actors Raj Kumar and Nana Patekar were about working with each other.
Both the actors are popular personalities, one is a veteran and the other is relatively new to mainstream movies.
In an interview, Mehul Kumar said that both of them had declared in advance that they would not tolerate other people’s anger.
We approached filmmaker Raj Kumar, who appeared on Friday Talkies YouTube channel, for the film’s central role. We met Rajinikanth for the second lead.
Rajinikanth liked the story of the film. But he did not want to work with Rajkumar. Later, the director went to Naseeruddin Shah, who also rejected him. Someone suggested Nana Patekar. Then he acted in the movie Parinda.
Mehul Kumar says, “I called him, but he said, ‘I don’t do commercial films’. I told him, ‘Listen, unless you do commercials, no one will know who you are’.
I asked to hear the story before making a decision and he called me the next day. He liked the song, but he had one condition. To which he said, ‘If Raj saab intervenes, I will leave the set and never come back.’
The director continued, “I also told Raj that I am locking Nana for the second lead. Then Rajsab called him rowdy.
Recently, Nana Patekar admitted in an interview that his anger often got the better of him. On the sets of Parinda, she recalled a physical fight with director Vidhu Vinod Chopra, who she once revealed that she bumped into at one point. On the other hand, actor Prashanth Narayanan also recalled the animosity between Raj Kumar and Dilip Kumar on the sets of Chaudhakar.
