Anil Sharma says cast and crew took ‘naa ke barabar’ salaries for Gadar 2, extras agreed to work just for free food

Anil Sharma said in Hindi, “Gadar is a brand, the actors are a brand, but the industry wasn’t doing so well at the time; that’s how things work. They couldn’t give me what I wanted, but still, they gave me Rs 60 crore. It wasn’t enough, but it was a lot, considering the situation. All of us, the entire unit, we took minimum wages to cut costs. Wages naa ke barabar liye sab logon ne (we took next to nothing). We took enough to survive and provide for our families, that’s it.”

He said that all the money went into the production, as it had with the first film. “Crowds bhi pata nahi kahan se laaye. Logon se request kar kar ke, free mein sansthaon se laaye. Sirf khana denge aur kuch nahi denge, 5000-6000 ka crowd (We arranged for thousands of extras through organisations; we promised them food and nothing else).” And people agreed, mostly due to the love they had for the first film, the director said.

Anil Sharma had previously said that Sunny Deol also compromised on his fee for the film. “We really made an effort to control everybody’s fees. Sunny’s fees is what it is, it’s okay, it’s just one person, but even he compromised quite a bit. These days, heroes and directors charge so much, the budgets end up ballooning up to Rs 600 crore, and sometimes the heroes charge Rs 150 crore and Rs 200 crore,” he told Lehren Retro.