Fahan Akhtar reveals he borrowed from people he knew while writing Dil Chahta Hai characters: “I told them, ‘What nonsense. This is not you, I imagined it all by myself’”
For 25 years, fans have debated what made Akash (Aamir Khan), Sameer (Saif Ali Khan) and Sid (Akshaye Khanna) in Dil Chahta Hai feel so real. Farhan Akhtar finally gave the simplest answer - he stole them. “I borrowed heavily from my friends without giving them any credit and any money,” Farhan admitted during his conversation with Anupama Chopra. “I robbed from them, stole their personalities and told them, ‘What nonsense. This is not you. I imagined it all by myself.’”
He didn’t construct the three friends as neat archetypes, even though Akash, Sameer and Sid eventually came to represent three very distinct personalities. “I just borrowed from everybody that I knew,” he said. The differences were deliberate because, as he explained, “Apart from the dramatic dynamics being different, even the humour dynamic becomes different.” That may explain why the banter in Dil Chahta Hai still feels like overheard conversation.
The writing also came from his own frustration as a young filmgoer. Farhan recalled that when he was watching Hindi films, “nothing really represented me” or his friends. “When I was growing up and watching films, nothing really represented me, you know, or my friends. And I think that’s why we gravitated more towards American films and television, because we found a certain relatability in the humour, the way friends were with each other.”
That became one of the foundations of Dil Chahta Hai. Even the songs were treated as an extension of that writing philosophy. Farhan explained that the characters couldn’t suddenly start singing in a completely different linguistic register. “The way characters sing a song has to be an extension of how they're speaking in the film,” he said. “It suddenly can't go into some different kind of Hindi when they start singing.”
And there was a very specific discipline behind making that seemingly effortless dialogue work. Farhan believes actors can only truly improvise after mastering what is written. “Improvisation is not possible unless you're completely familiar and sure of the written material,” he said.
Also Read: Farhan Akhtar reveals he almost cut “chamkile din” from Dil Chahta Hai title track written by his father Javed Akhtar
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