Why did Irfan Khan reject the film ‘Ishqiya’? Know full story

Last updated:January 30, 2025, 09:58 IST

The film ‘Ishqiya’ (2010) gave Arshad Warsi, Vidya Balan and Naseeruddin Shah a new identity. These actors who made the film a hit were never the first choice of the makers. Vishal Bhardwaj and Abhishek Chaubey, Pankaj Tripathi …Read more

Vishal Bhardwaj was angry with Irfan Khan.

New Delhi. In the year 2010, a film came out which was quite different from all the films released in this era. Arshad Warsi, Vidya Balan and Naseeruddin Shah got a distinct identity from this film. Abhishek Choubey gave Naseeruddin Shah a chance to play a romantic role for the first time in his film. At the same time, Arshad Warsi got the film with a comedy role of ‘Golmaal’. Now, if we talk about Vidya Balan, before ‘The Dirty Picture’, this film proved to be a path breaking for her.

This is the 2010 hit film Ishqiya. The film ‘Ishqiya’, directed by Abhishek Choubey, was successful in burying the flag at the box-office. Along with this, the film also got a lot of accolades of critics, but do you know that none of these was actually the first choice of director for ‘Ishqiya’. He wanted to make this hit film with Pankaj Tripathi, Irrfan Khan, Preity Zinta and Lara Dutta.

Irfan Khan cheated friend!
Talking with Masable India, director Abhishek Choubey revealed that he wanted to cast Irfan Khan before Arshad Warsi in Babban’s role. Irrfan also liked the script, but after the final edit, he pulled back from the film. Abhishek says, ‘Irrfan had heard a new version of the film’s script and he felt that the story was not in his character. I felt for the first time that he would not do my film. When the script was doing excellent work, there was a lot of bad things behind the curtain ‘.

The top actress was rejected for a friend
Irfan Khan’s ‘Ishqiya’ rejected his many years old friendship with Vishal Bhardwaj had a rift and Vishal did not talk to Irfan Khan for many years. Vishal Bhardwaj along with Abhishek Chaubey wrote the story of the film and rejected a top actress to cast his friend Irrfan Khan in the film.

Vishal Bhardwaj was angry with Irfan Khan
Speaking with Lalantop, Vishal Bhardwaj had said, ‘We did not cast a big actress in’ Ishqiya ‘as she did not want to work with Irfan Khan, as she was not a successful commercial actor till that time. Because of this, I was very angry with Irfan. I did not talk to him for 2-3 years. I did not pick up his phone ‘.