Saif Ali Khan refused Dil Chahta Hai as he was ‘hardly there in the second half’: ‘Dimple Kapadia asked me to…’

Saif Ali Khan made his film debut in the early 1990s but it wasn’t until 2001’s Dil Chahta Hai that Saif’s career actually took off. 23 years later, Dil Chahta Hai is seen as a career-defining role for Saif, who never looked back after this Farhan Akhtar film but Saif had initially refused the film because he did not appreciate the length of his role. Saif wasn’t the central character of the film, which also starred Aamir Khan, Preity Zinta, Akshaye Khanna and Dimple Kapadia.

In a 2001 interview with journalist Nilufer Qureshi, when asked why he refused to star in Dil Chahta Hai, he said, “I’d said no because I was hardly there in the second half. Dimple asked me to reconsider my decision. Javed (Akhtar) saab assured me that he’d look into things.” However, the success of the film took him by surprise and Saif himself admitted that the length wasn’t something to be concerned about.

“I’ve realised that the length of a role isn’t important. I signed on just because of the two scenes in the restaurant and in the car. I knew Sameer wouldn’t be forgotten. I worked very very hard. Though I did expect a response, I didn’t imagine it would be so overwhelming,” he said and added that receiving all this praise felt like “winning an Oscar.” “Even co-stars who hadn’t kept in touch have called. It feels good when your work is appreciated,” he said.

With Dil Chahta Hai, Farhan Akhtar brought a big change in the film industry as he decided to record live sound for the film. Saif, however, was not convinced about using sync sound for the film. He shared in the making video, “I told Farhan, let’s just dub the film. Everyone is dubbing the films in India. People are used to it. And, they played back a take to me. It was amazing. I remember Aamir smiling and asking, ‘Do you want to dub it?’ and I said, ‘No, we can never get that.”