‘Did you make Juhi Chawla cry?’: Director Dharmesh Darshan admits he’d ‘push’ his actresses but didn’t ‘beat them’

Director Dharmesh Darshan praised actors Juhi Chawla and Karisma Kapoor for totally submitting themselves to him, as he addressed rumours of having made them cry. He worked with Karisma on the films Raja Hindustani and Haan Maine Bhi Pyaar Kiya, and with Juhi on the film Lootere. In an interview with Lehren Retro, the director denied making them cry on set, but admitted that he had his differences with Juhi in particular. “I make them cry only in the shots, and then I cry too,” he said with a laugh, and added, “I never abuse my heroines. I think sometimes they’d get scared about how to deliver… I don’t beat up anyone, I don’t abuse anyone. I push them. I call them by their (character) names.”

Agreeing that he’s ‘a little Raj Kapoor-obssessed’, Dharmesh said that he would never call Aamir ‘Raja’, because he was so committed already, since he’d do only one film at a time. But the women were juggling multiple projects simultaneously, so it became difficult for them to lock into their characters. “Aamir Khan was already so dedicated. Even Sunny Deol; if I may say, he was more involved than Aamir Khan, would you believe this?”

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Admitting that he was ‘very young’ at the time, he said that he’d ‘squabble’ with Juhi Chawla while they were making Lootere together, with Sunny Deol. And when the time came to cast a lead heroine for Raja Hindustani, he obviously went to her, but she played ‘hard to get’. Recalling an anecdote, he said, “Juhi said a funny thing to me. I’m saying this for the first time. She’s a sport, she’ll take this, and she has accepted that she made a mistake (by not doing the film). I went to meet her in the makeup room, and I said, ‘Madam Juhi Chawla, this is the film’. She turned and said that this isn’t Lootere, this is an ordinary subject.”

Dharmesh cited the example of the recent hit Hum Aapke Hain Koun, in which Madhuri Dixit’s character stood out despite an ensemble cast. “She turned to me and said, ‘But you’re not Sooraj Barjatya’. And I said to her, ‘And you’re not Madhuri Dixit’.” They ended up not doing the film, and the role went to Karisma Kapoor the very next day. But, he said, Juhi apologised to him, and has admitted in the press that passing on the film was a mistake.