Six actors rejected Luck By Chance, Javed Akhtar convinced Aamir Khan to do a cameo: Lesser known facts about Zoya Akhtar’s debut film

As Zoya’s first labour of love turns 15 on Tuesday, let’s delve into five interesting trivia about the film:

Six actors rejected Luck By Chance

Luck By Chance, a narrative centered around struggling actors, mirrored the real-life challenges faced by Zoya Akhtar in bringing this film to fruition, despite being the daughter of writer Javed Akhtar and veteran actor Honey Irani. In an old interview, Zoya revealed that six actors rejected Luck By Chance before she approached her brother, Farhan Akhtar, to play the lead role in it. “Farhan was the 7th person who read the script,” she said.

In another interview with indianexpress.com Farhan revealed how Zoya carried the script of Luck By Chance for seven years. He said, “Zoya lived with Luck By Chance for seven years. For six of those years, I had no intention of acting in it.”

Describing how Farhan was cast in the film, Zoya said, “Actually, Reema (Kagti) wanted to cast him in Honeymoon Travels Pvt Ltd. She asked me to check him out. Then I got to see The Fakir of Venice, which was the first film Farhan acted in. I really liked what I saw, so I asked him if he wanted to act in Luck By Chance.”

Zoya struggled for 8-10 years before making Luck By Chance: Anurag Kashyap

Zoya’s journey to bring Luck By Chance to the screen was marked by 8-10 years of struggle, as revealed by filmmaker Anurag Kashyap in an interview with Lallantop. Anurag, who made a cameo appearance in the film, shed light on the prejudice Zoya faced as a female filmmaker during that era. He said, “At that time, there used to be a prejudice against female filmmakers, which Zoya and Farah Khan helped break in mainstream cinema… She doesn’t have to struggle now, but she has earned her place.”

Anurag spoke about how many actors were willing to appear in cameo appearances in the film but nobody wanted to play the lead role of a struggling actor. He also revealed that Zoya would often discover actors dropping out of her movie through newspaper reports. “She’s struggled a lot. Farhan is her younger brother, Zoya started working before him. But she had to wait almost 10 years to get her first film made, even though Farhan had made three films by then,” he said.

Shah Rukh Khan made a cameo appearance in Luck By Chance.

Javed Akhtar convinced Aamir Khan to do a cameo 

The list of the people who made cameo appearances in Luck By Chance is long but the superstar whose appearance caught everyone by surprise was Aamir Khan. The superstar at the time had the policy of not making cameo appearances in films. He was last seen in a cameo role in the 1993 film Damini. Knowing about his reservation, Zoya was very hesitant to ask him to appear in her film. However, the filmmaker’s father, Javed Akhtar, played a crucial role in convincing him.

Sharing the same, Zoya said in an old interview, “I really wanted Aamir on the film and I knew that he doesn’t do cameos. So, I didn’t know whether I should ask him and make it awkward for him. But I happen to mention it to my dad because I was working with my dad on the dialogue of the film. I get a call from my dad one day, and he had met Aamir for something else, and he calls me up and said he spoke to Aamir and that he will do the cameo. I was like what?”

Rishi Kapoor was the first person to sign Luck By Chance

In an interview with Film Companion, Zoya revealed that while she struggled to sign the lead actor for her film, Rishi Kapoor was the first person to sign Luck By Chance. Talking about her experience working with him, she said, “It was crazy to direct him but he was lovely. He was very supportive, he couldn’t believe that I couldn’t get an actor for the film. But he and I had the biggest fights. We used to fight with each other loudly. I would keep telling him, ‘Sir, please let me do my work,’ ‘Keep quiet.’ He told me once jokingly, ‘ I have worked with 150 filmmakers in my career, you are the first female filmmaker, may you be the last.’ He used to make me laugh. But he is so good. He pretends that he is spontaneous but he is completely prepared. He was always on time, he was bang on with his lines, he is a pro.”

Rishi Kapoor in a still from Luck By Chance.

Opening credits were inspired from photos Zoya took as an AD

While the use of portraits in opening credits has been made very common, especially by TVF, Zoya was among the first filmmakers to apply this technique in films. In an interview with Film Companion, the filmmaker revealed that the inspiration for the opening credits came from photographs she had taken during her nine years working as an AD.

She said, “I started working on sets as an assistant director when I was 19 years old, and I used to take pictures of people behind the set. So, when we were making Luck By Chance, I knew that the opening credits of the film were going to be portraits. I had all the references from the pictures I had clicked and I wanted to give a sense of the world that is behind the camera. I wanted to show it’s all human, it’s not a faraway world.”