Alia Bhatt had to step in to save ‘scared’ Shakun Batra from Rishi Kapoor amid everyday clashes on Kapoor and Sons sets: ‘I won’t give a shot’

Rishi Kapoor got excited when he learnt he would be working with a Oscar winner

In a chat with Galatta Plus, Shakun shared that when he pitched the film to the actor, Rishi had his reservations as he felt that he would “look bad” with “bad make-up” in trying to look like a 90-year-old on screen. Shakun, however, revealed to him that the prosthetic artist of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Greg Cannom, could be his prosthetic artist, and that got him “really excited.” “He didn’t hear most of the script. He just heard his set pieces and said okay,” he recalled and added that until Rishi watched one of the rough cuts, he didn’t even know that the characters played by Rajat Kapoor and Ratna Pathak had significant parts in the film.

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Shakun recalled that while shooting one of the sequences where the family gets together for a song, Rishi told him bluntly that it would be impossible to remember all the character names so he decided to give them pet names like Dabbu and Babbu. “He called me and said, ‘Dekh kitne log hain. Inn sabka ka naam toh yaad rehne nahi vala toh hum vaise bhi Punjabi hain. Iska naam hai Dabbu, aur uska naam hai Babbu. Ab Dabbu Babbu karke scene khatam ho jayega (See there are too many people. There is no way that I am going to remember their names. We are Punjabis so let me call them Dabbu and Babbu. We can get it done that way.)’”

Shakun Batra was ‘scared’ of Rishi Kapoor

When asked about the popular notion that he and Rishi did not get along on the set, Shakun confirmed that to be true. “We clashed a lot. If there is one thing that everyone saw everyday was Rishi sir coming on set and me getting scared because I was like, I don’t know if I can convince him of what the scene is. We went back and forth,” he said.

Shakun shared that since he wasn’t shooting in a traditional fashion, Rishi would sometimes say, “Then I won’t give a shot.” And when Shakun asked him for a reason, he would say, “Because I am saving my performance for a close up.” Shakun shared that it took him a while to fill that gap, until they reached on the same page.

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He credited the film’s actors Alia Bhatt, Fawad Khan and Sidharth Malhotra for bridging that gap. “If I wanted another take, Alia or Sid would be like, ‘Sir, I messed up that dialogue, can we take it again?’ Because I would just look at them and be like ‘I think I need one more take’ , and Alia would be like, ‘Okay, I got it’.”

Years later, Alia married Rishi Kapoor’s son Ranbir Kapoor. Alia and Ranbir started dating in 2017, and got married in 2022. Rishi Kapoor passed away after a long battle with cancer in 2020.

DISCLAIMER: This article is an editorial reflection on film history and celebrity anecdotes; it is intended for entertainment purposes and does not contain professional or medical advice. While it mentions the passing of Rishi Kapoor, the context is a factual retrospective on his cinematic legacy and professional collaborations.