David Dhawan was a ‘dummy director’, went missing from shoots, fed ‘zeher’ in Govinda’s mind: Pahlaj Nihalani

David Dhawan and Pahjal Nihalani worked together on many films in the early 1990s, and later had a fallout.

New Delhi | June 20, 2025 10:18 AM IST

3 min read

Filmmaker David Dhawan and actor Govinda worked together in many films across the 1990s. (Photo: Express Archives)

Back in the 1990s, David Dhawan made a series of massive hits. These include films like Raja Babu, Aankhen, Hero No 1, Haseena Maan Jayegi, Bol Radha Bol, among many others, and some of these films were produced by Pahlaj Nihalani. In a new interview, Pahlaj claimed that David wouldn’t be present at his shoots, and for him, he was a “dummy director.” Pahlaj implied that he did all the heavy lifting, but David believed that he was the one delivering one hit after another. With Pahlaj, David made Shola Aur Shabnam, Aankhen, Andaz, and some lesser known films like Aag Ka Gola and Aandhiyan.

In a chat shared on Vickey Lalwani’s YouTube channel, Pahlaj said that David “poisoned” Govinda’s mind against him. “They thought I had made a lot of money from Aankhen because of them; when in fact, they got famous because of me. I got the story and the screenplay, dialogues were written by Anees Bazmee, I was the one who went for song recordings, I would shoot the songs. David only filmed the scenes. In Aankhen, during the climax shoot of 27 days, David was not there, not even for a single day. He was shooting for something else in Mumbai. During a lot of action scenes, I was the one on the shoot, David wouldn’t be there,” he said.

When asked why he kept signing David for multiple films if he wasn’t delivering what he promised, Pahlaj said, “For me, he was a dummy director. The film will always be mine because I was the producer,” he declared. Pahlaj then shared that they never fought but their fallout happened because David was apparently badmouthing Pahlaj in front of other actors.

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“He believed that Aankhen and Shola Aur Shabnam worked because of him. And he would say that I paid Anil Kapoor, and not him. All these films – Deewana Mastana, Jodi No 1, Haseena Maan Jayegi… Deewana Mastana was adapted from an English film and I was the one who showed him that film. I also discussed Haseena Maan Jayegi with him… David has always enjoyed copying others’ work. He made all these films with other producers,” he said. A huge majority of David’s films were remakes of Tamil, Telugu and English films.

Pahlaj further claimed that presumably, David wanted to be addressed as ‘David ji’. “I think he wanted people to call him David ji and I would never call him that. It was perhaps this complex… I analysed that he is probably scared of facing me,” he said, and added, “He never said that call me David Ji… I could see that’s how he thought, I am a human after all.” He also added, “David is the kind of man who will only call when he has an ulterior motive. He doesn’t respect relationships, he only thinks about himself. He is only looking out for how to make money.”

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