‘Irrfan Khan didn’t know what the next day would bring’: Deepak Dobriyal says late actor forgot all his pain while shooting for Angrezi Medium

Even today, the passing of Irrfan Khan continues to leave a deep void in the hearts of cinema lovers. His absence feels like a space in Indian cinema that no one can truly fill. While his body of work lives on, films we revisit, cherish, and admire, it’s hard not to feel the weight of his loss. In an exclusive conversation with SCREEN, actor Deepak Dobriyal, who shared the screen with Irrfan in multiple films, from Maqbool to what became Irrfan’s final Hindi film, Angrezi Medium, opened up about the pain Irrfan endured while filming, and the unmatched dedication he brought to his craft, even in the face of terminal illness. The actor shot for the film while battle neuroendocrine cancer.

“Think about it, what Irrfan bhai was going through mentally during his last film. And even in that crisis, he was giving utmost importance to the emotions, the feelings of his character, and to his craft, continuously thinking about where the character’s journey was headed. He knew where his own journey in life was going, yet he chose to prioritize the character, where the father-daughter relationship had reached, where the story was going, the emotional graph of the character. He was just thinking about how to perform a scene differently. Imagine forgetting about your real-life struggles just to give everything to the role. That’s a whole other level of performance. A man who didn’t know what the next day or night would bring, was still delivering that kind of performance. There’s no greater performance than that. For me, Angrezi Medium was Irrfan bhai’s greatest performance.”

Also Read | ‘Irrfan Khan lost his cool, abused Om Puri and Naseeruddin Shah’: Deepak Dobriyal recalls shooting with the legends on Maqbool

Angrezi Medium was released in March 2020. Just a month later, in April, Irrfan Khan passed away.