‘I spit food on Zoya Akhtar’s hand during shoot,’ reveals Ayesha Raza: ‘She makes you feel held as an actor’

Actor Ayesha Raza opens up about working with Zoya Akhtar, and how the director makes her feel seen and heard while shooting a film.

Ayesha Raza compliments director Zoya Akhtar.

The film Dil Dhadakne Do had a gripping story, a star cast, and a story treated to absolute perfection by director Zoya Akhtar. Zoya, who has always been vocal about her responsibilities as a filmmaker, hit it out of the park with the movie while handling a cast filled with the likes of Anil Kapoor, Shefali Shah, Priyanka Chopra, Ranveer Singh, Farhan Akhtar, and more. One of the characters from the film Indu was played by actor Ayesha Raza, who recently talked about Zoya’s directorial methods and complimented her on the attention to detail and compassion she possesses while filming.

While talking to Just Too Filmy, Raza was asked about the one director who inspires her the most, and without skipping a beat, she said, “It’s Zoya Akhtar. I mean, she treats you like you are the most important person in the world, and Dil Dhadhakne Do was one of the first major films I did. I was fairly new during the film, and I hadn’t done much work, but every time I used to suggest a change, Zoya would say, ‘Okay, show me how you are going to do it.’ Giving an actor that space to explore and not imposing your own ideas constantly is great, and that is why she is magical.”

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To prove her point further, Raza recalled an incident from the sets of the Prime Video show Made In Heaven and said, “I remember shooting for Made In Heaven in this tiny flat in Nizaamuddin. I am on a treadmill, and I am eating sweets while doing it. I can’t keep eating sweets one after another for every shot, so I asked for a bin where I could spit it out. There was no space for a bin, and even the ADs couldn’t stand there, but Zoya took a tissue in her hand and told me to spit into that. That is how ‘held’ you can make an actor feel, by being there for them in every single scenario that might occur.”

The film had several iconic characters, including the evergreen Anil Kapoor playing the role of Kamal Mehra. The actor admitted during an interview with SCREEN that he was quite hesitant to play the character of a father but was convinced by his own son, Harshvardhan Kapoor. He said, “When she narrated the script to me, Ranveer Singh was on board then. I said, “Ye kya Ranveer ke baap ka role, nahi yaar.” Because in India, you get stuck in a stereotype. As usual, my son Harsh (Harshvardhan Kapoor) was responsible. He’d also convinced me to do Slumdog Millionaire in 2007. He told me, “It’s okay, yaar, you’ve done enough of running around the trees. Do this grey character!” With Dil Dhadakne Do again, he told me to not think of it as a father, but as a character.

Raza was recently seen in the Netflix film Aap Jaisa Koi, alongside R. Madhavan, Fatima Sana Shaikh, Sahib Chatterjee, and Karan Wahi.

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