Rajesh Khanna was suffering from ‘confidence issues’ during Swarg, would ask for reshoots, says late actor’s co-star

Rajesh Khanna and Govinda-starrer Swarg can be seen as a passing of the baton from one superstar to another. By the time the David Dhawan film released in 1990, Rajesh Khanna, who was once known as the biggest superstar of Hindi movies, was witnessing a rough patch. But his co-star Govinda, who had tasted fame a few years prior to that, was starting to become the biggest superstar of his time. The two were notorious for arriving late on film sets, and in a recent interaction, one of their co-stars from the film shared some behind-the-scenes anecdotes.

Arun Bakshi, who played the role of a movie director in Swarg, shared that he was a big fan of Rajesh Khanna, and was in complete awe of the Aradhana actor when they shot for the film. Bakshi shared that Dhawan did not have to convince Khanna too much to take up the role of the patriarch in Swarg. But, he also shared that Khanna was going through some self doubt when he shot for the movie.

The best days of Khanna were behind him by this time, and through the 1980s, he had seen very few hits. “During Swarg, Rajesh Khanna was going through a downhill period. He had a few issues with his confidence also at that time. Sometimes, he would reshoot a few shots from the previous day,” he shared with Bollywood Thikana.

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When asked if Khanna was going through self doubt, Bakshi nodded and said, “He was starting to get a little conscious. I had previously worked with him on BR Chopra’s Awam. He was bubbling with joy, even though he was on a downhill, but things were a little different here.”

Speaking about the punctuality isses of his co-actors, he mentioned that Khanna would show up almost an hour late, but he chose to refrain from commenting on Govinda’s punctuality. Swarg was one of the last few hits of Rajesh Khanna’s career, and became one of the highest grossing films of that year.