Akki didn’t play dirty 
By Taran Adarsh, November 30, 2005 - 22:44 IST
Deewane Huye Paagal is in the news… for the wrong reasons this time. In fact, an article in a section of the media has stirred the hornet’s nest. The story states that Akshay Kumar and producer Firoz A. Nadiadwala were instrumental in getting Shahid Kapoor’s role chopped off from the film.
“Rubbish,” DEEWANE HUYE PAAGAL producer Firoz A. Nadiadwala denies the story outright. So what’s the truth? “The truth is that Akshay himself suggested that his scenes be chopped off for the betterment of the film,” Firoz startles me with this statement.
Can Firoz support his statement? “Sure! A number of people were upset that an extremely popular song, ‘Maar Sutya’, was edited from the final print. The song, filmed on Akki and Rimmi, was trimmed at Akki’s behest since he felt that the film was unnecessarily getting lengthy,” Firoz defends his hero.
The classy producer continues in the same vein, “Another sequence deleted from the film was the fight between Akki and a gora, whom we had called all the way from the U.S. We shot with him for almost eight days and believe me, the fight sequence was amongst the high points of the film, besides costing us a packet. But, again, we felt that we’d be deviating from the core issue of the film -- love story. We decided to remove that sequence as well.”
Firoz adds that even portions of the climax -- with helicopters et al -- were removed from the final version because of the length of the film. “Even those sequences were filmed on Akki. So, if at all anyone should be complaining, it should be Akki,” Firoz states, continuing non-stop on this topic, “The article states that David Dhawan and Satish Kaushik were the original directors of the film, but both opted out since they couldn’t take the interference. To set the record straight, DD was supposed to direct an altogether different film, while Satish Kaushik was never the director of this film. At least get the facts right when you concoct a story.”
DEEWANE HUYE PAAGAL director Vikram Bhatt also supports Firoz’s statement. In a separate conversation, Vicky tells me, “Shahid’s role is exactly what was narrated to him at the very outset. Shahid didn’t complain even once since he knew all along what the story was. And why would Akshay want anyone’s scenes to be removed? Does it mean that the producer and director are fools to cater to the whims of an actor, sidelining their film in the process?”
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