‘I have to ask Akshay Kumar, Suniel Shetty and Paresh Rawal to snap out of Hera Pheri mode’: Ahmed Khan on filming Welcome to the Jungle

However, Ahmed Khan admits that the challenge is to keep a check on their indulgence and ensure that they don’t cross over to the Hera Pheri franchise while doing Welcome to the Jungle, which is the third instalment in the popular comedy franchise Welcome. “I know that I don’t have to interfere too much. They know what they have to do. All I have to do is to see there’s not too much Hera Pheri happening. I then tell them to snap out of it and come back to the zone of the film,” added Ahmed.

The Welcome threequel combines the might of the Hera Pheri trio with Arshad Warsi, Tusshar Kapoor, and Shreyas Talpade from Rohit Shetty’s Golmaal franchise, Kiku Sharda and Krushna Abhishek from The Great Indian Kapil Show, along with Daler Mehendi, Mika Singh, Yashpal Sharma, Mukesh Tiwari, Johnny Lever, Rajpal Yadav, Sharib Hashmi, Inaamulhaq, Jackie Shroff, Raveena Tandon, Lara Dutta, Disha Patani, and Jacqueline Fernandez.

Raveena, who reunites with Akshay in Welcome to the Jungle after over two decades, plays a Kashmiri character in the film. “Raveena and I are very old friends. We all came into the film industry together. When I was planning this film, I told Raveena she has to do the part. When I narrated it to her, she said, ‘Ahmu, main toh karungi hi karungi.’ I really wanted her,” said Ahmed.

“She plays a Kashmiri woman. She’s very serious and angry all the time. But when she talks, you think ye kyun bol rahi hai,” added Ahmed. He revealed that him and Akshay often got emotional on set. “He said to me, ‘Humne career sath mein start kia tha. Ab career sath mein khatam hoga’ (laughs).”

Ahmed Khan admitted that it’s not easy to manage such a huge ensemble cast every day on set. “To make such a film is not a joke. We had a minimum of 20 actors in a scene, and they went up to 34. We used to say, ‘It’s a less stressful day because there are only 15 actors on set.’ That’s still the full-blown cast of an average film. A lot of the times, we even used to forget that an actor wasn’t supposed to come in that day,” said Ahmed.

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“It’s a tough job yaar. It’s not easy to manage each actor’s ego, their dates, their personal requirements, their dialogues. It’s not just action and cut today. There’s PR, there are ego massages, there are problems like one actor coming out of van while another doesn’t. Filmmaking is not like K Asif’s anymore, where you just smoke on set, and demand real diamonds instead of pearls. If you make those demands today, you’d be told to go home. If you have to survive today, you’ve to scratch their back so that they scratch yours,” added Ahmed.