Ajay Devgn says he signed Mahesh Bhatt's Zakhm while taking a shower

Zakhm is considered by many fans as one of the best films of Ajay Devgn's career. The film marked the last directorial feature for Mahesh Bhatt, and even went on to fetch Ajay his first National Award for Best Actor. The actor, who is busy promoting his upcoming release Auron Mein Kahan Dum Tha, was speaking with The Lallantop when he shared how he got the role. (Also read: Ajay Devgn fans defend him as Twitter user calls him ‘expressionless’ in movies: ‘Aajkal ke bacche…’)

What Ajay said

During the interview, when Ajay was asked about the experience of working with Mahesh Bhatt in Zakhm, the actor said: “It’s lovely to work with Mahesh Bhatt. I was playing him in the film. I remember when I was shooting in Hyderabad… we didn’t have mobile phones then. I was in the shower when the landline in my room rang, the ones which used to be placed in the bathroom, close to your shower… I just picked it up, so the voice on the other side said, ‘Mahesh sir wants to speak to you!’ He passed him the phone and then I said, ‘Bhatt sahab I am having a shower’, and he said, ‘You just listen to me, I am directing the last film of my life, and I am quitting after this.' He started to narrate the story, but because I was in the shower, I said, ‘Bhatt sahab, I am taking a shower, I will do the film’. That’s how Zakhm happened. After that, he never made a film. He stuck to his words.”

More details

Ajay went on to add that Zakhm was a powerful film which had many scenes where he simply had to react without a lot of dialogues. The actor shared that the scenes were constructed so well that one simply had to be present in them and listen. He said that there is no aspect of ‘performance’ in that film.

Ajay was last seen in the sports drama Maidaan. He has Auron Mein Kahan Dum Tha alongside Tabu. The Neeraj Pandey film releases on August 2.