Hera Pheri was halted midway because industry lost faith in Akshay Kumar after string of flops, claims Suneel Darshan: ‘He had tears in his eyes’

Suneel said that at this time, he felt “there was something special” about Akshay. He continued, “I signed Akshay and I told him that work will only happen on my terms.” Suneel then proceeded to cast Karisma Kapoor in the film, but had to tell her that he was casting her with Akshay. “I told Karisma that there will be two problems. One is that I won’t be able to pay you as much money as you get from others. And the second thing is that Akshay is the hero. She said no problem, you company is our company. Her mom Babita also said that we would love to keep working with you,” he recalled.

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Akshay’s career, as per Suneel, was in a “bad condition” as “no distributor wanted to touch his film.” Despite the lack of industry support, Suneel was confident enough to bet his ‘last penny’ on the actor. Suneel recalled that when Akshay delivered another flop around that time, a producer spoke to him rather rudely. “Akshay came to me and he almost had tears in his eyes. He told me that he had asked another producer why they hadn’t put up a banner of his film and they told him ‘tumhari aukkaat nahi hai ki tumhari film ka banner lagaya jaaye.’ I got nervous looking at his nervous face. I got the biggest banner in Juhu with just Akshay’s face on it,” he said and added, “The man who was a liability for everyone, I knew he would be my asset.”

Suneel said that Jaanwar did well in select centres and recalled that once at a party, “Yash Johar told me that if someone can make Lalu Prasad Yadav lose in Bihar then it’s me. Jaanwar was the biggest blockbuster in Bihar’s history and in 25 centers, the film worked for 100 days.” Jaanwar also starred Shilpa Shetty.