When Yash Chopra ‘went through a phase of insecurity’ before Chandni’s release, was asked, ‘Have you gone mad?’

Yash Chopra was going through some self-doubt when he made the 1989 film Chandni and packed some action scenes into it, even though it did not need any.

By: Entertainment Desk

New Delhi | April 21, 2023 04:47 PM IST

2 min read

Yash Chopra had directed films like Chandni, Silsila, Darr, Deewar, and Veer-Zaara among others (Photo: Express Archives)

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Yash Chopra’s 1989 film Chandni was a lifesaver for Yash Raj Films. After a few lulls in the 1980s like Sawaal, Faasle, and Vijay, the Sridevi film changed the fate of the studio. The romantic drama was centered around its titular character and was accompanied by one of the best albums that Yash Raj Films ever saw. The romantic drama made Switzerland the destination that Hindi film lovers wanted to visit and gave Yash Raj the kind of heroine that would become the archetype for a mainstream Hindi film leading lady.

But, Yash Chopra was dealing with some self-doubt when he made Chandni. The filmmaker had seen a few flops across this decade and while he knew that Chandni deserved a certain kind of delicate handling, he could not help but incorporate some action in the film, which in hindsight wasn’t the right call.

Yash admitted that when Faasle flopped, he “went through a phase of insecurity.” And as he was making Chandni, every poster he saw around town had heroes with guns and daggers, which made him question his decision to make a romantic drama. In an old interview with National Herald India, Chopra admitted that he “tried to incorporate action in Chandni” but his sound designer instantly brought him back to reality.

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“On seeing the rushes, my sound designer, Mangesh Desai said, ‘Yash, have you gone mad? This looks absurd.’ So, I asked Vinod Khanna for a day of reshooting. His action scene was deleted,” he recalled. When Vinod Khanna’s action scene was deleted, the distributors “objected vehemently” and threatened to back out. “I told them that they could back out. When the film released, they had the courtesy to say, ‘We made a mistake, you were absolutely right’,” he recalled.

Chandni proved to be a big success for Yash Raj Films and was appreciated for the performances of Sridevi, Rishi Kapoor, Vinod Khanna and Anupam Kher.

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