Scam 1992 actor Paresh Ganatra recalls losing all his savings during Harshad Mehta market crash: ‘My salary was Rs 5,000 in those days’

During the conversation, the actor recalled the time when he got a call from director Anees Bazmee for the role in Welcome. “I had already worked with Anees in No Entry. When Welcome was being shot, my show Baa Bahoo Aur Baby was airing on Star Plus. Anees bhai called and said that there’s an interesting character in the film for you and you will have to come to Dubai on so and so dates for 15 days,” he shared.

Paresh further added, “I told him that my show is going on and I shoot it for 25-27 days in a month. It will be difficult for me, I can’t do it. He tried to convince me but I apologised and said that I won’t be able to do it because this is my prior commitment.”

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However, Anees tried to get him on board again after some time, but this time, for a day’s shoot. “After 6 months, he called me again and asked me to come for a one day shoot to Lonavala to shoot just one climax scene and you can’t say no. I just asked him about the dates and went to the shoot at Tiger Point in Lonavala.”

The Bhool Bhulaiyaa 3 director is known to give freedom to his actors for improvisation and that’s what happened on the sets of Welcome. “He narrated the climax scene to me and wanted to improvise it. I had thought of a line, which is so iconic now, ‘Mai sirf dikhne mai khatarnaak hu, lekin aadmi bahut acha hu’. I suggested and he agreed to use it for my character,” Paresh elaborated.

In fact, veteran actor Nana Patekar also partook in the final output of the scene. “By then, Nana sir came and asked to start the shoot. When we narrated the whole scene to him, he came up with another improvisation. ‘Mujhe kyun toda, mai illegal nahi tha’. Anees bhai was so happy. Vo scene dhaancha tha and kahan pahuch gaya (It was merely a rough draft and went to another level). As an actor, he gives a lot of freedom to improvise, that’s something really good about him, you don’t get that in many directors,” he ended.