Rishi Kapoor said Irrfan Khan doesn’t know acting after he improvised a D-Day scene

The country lost two of its most beloved actors last week, Irrfan Khan and Rishi Kapoor. The actors, who died just a day apart, had worked in only one film together, D-Day.

The film’s director Nikkhil Advani talked to film critic Rajeev Masand about working with them on the 2013 spy thriller. “When they came together, Rishi Kapoor had heard that Irrfan Khan is this great actor. So he wanted to see it and fortunately for me, they were doing this one scene where Irrfan decided to improvise. And Irrfan never ever gives the same cue again. So Rishi Kapoor called me and said, ‘Usko samjhao, usko acting nahi aati hai. He has to hit his cue otherwise I will not know how to do and what to say.’ So I explained to him and said ‘Sir you don’t have to worry. You start speaking whenever you want to speak, don’t worry about him.’ They were just very different but they were very special. The film has become even more special for me now,” he said.

Irrfan played an undercover R&AW agent in the film while Rishi played an undercover don. Irrfan and Arjun Rampal’s characters were tasked with hunting him down and bringing him back to India. One of the film’s scenes featuring Rishi and Irrfan in a car is being heavily shared online since their deaths.

Talking about working with Rishi, Irrfan had earlier said, “My cousin is his ultimate fan, though I have watched all his movies. I never thought I had it in me to be a Rishi Kapoor. He is hot liquid. He has worked on cultivating his craft so well and he is one of those stars you never have enough of, even if he is doing the same thing, movie after movie. I think that’s what makes his second innings so spectacular. He doesn’t have to be a star anymore, so he is having a blast being an actor.”

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In another interview, Advani also talked about how Irrfan had bribed Rishi with chicken and alcohol for a shoot. “We were shooting in the desert and while Irrfan and a lot of team bunked out in tents, Chintuji would drive two hours back to the hotel. He was averse to early morning shoots but there was this sunrise shot we had to shoot with him and he was refusing to comply, saying, ‘I’m an actor, not a doodhwala’,” he told Mumbai Mirror recently. Advani said Irrfan bribed Rishi with ‘chicken jungli and alcohol’ for him to stay in the desert. “It was a near-impossible feat in Kutch, but he delivered on his promise and I got my shot,” he said.

Irrfan died on Wednesday at 53 years old after battling neuroendocrine tumour for two years. Rishi Kapoor died a day later on Thursday at 67 after fighting leukaemia for more than a year.

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