Akshay Kumar and Raveena Tandon have collaborated on a bunch of films together – Mohra, Barood and Khiladiyon Ka Khiladi, among others. They last appeared together in the 2004 film, Police Force: An Inside Story. Now, 22 years later, they reunited on the big screen in Ahmed Khan’s Welcome To The Jungle, washing their fans over with a wave of nostalgia.
In a rather memorable scene in the film, Raveena’s Zoya tells Akshay’s Rajeev, ‘Kahan the tum bees saal se?’ On paper, it’s just another line in the screenplay. But it plays more like a deliciously meta nod to their off-screen past, a reminder that after years, the former lovers have found themselves sharing the frame in a film again.
Speaking exclusively to News18, Ahmed recalls the 90s when their
love story made heads turn. “They’re both my friends. We joined the industry at around the same time. Woh waqt maine dekha hua hai. We’ve all grown up now. We got married, we’ve kids now. All those things sound childish today,” he tells us. And how did he convince them to do the scene in Welcome To The Jungle?
“I told them, ‘Mere liye yeh nahi karoge toh kiske liye karoge?’ Then we decided that let’s tell the public that you’re reuniting on a film after 20 years. We played the scene out very smartly and slyly. There’s a subcontext to the whole scene. And the audience got the joke,” Ahmed remarks. For the unversed, Akshay and Raveena began dating in 1995.
They ultimately split in 1998 amid intense media scrutiny. Lauding them for being a sport, the choreographer-director adds, “It’s very sweet of Akshay and Raveena to take it well and do the scene for me. They could’ve said no. But they didn’t. I told them that if you’re doing this scene at all, be convinced about the situation and hit it out of the park.”
Quiz him about Akshay and Raveena’s bond on the sets of Welcome To The Jungle, and he says, “They all call each other ‘tu’. There’s no ‘good morning’ or ‘good evening’. It’s like, ‘Raveena, kya kar rahi hai? Idhar aa, khade ho jaa fatafat.’ Akshay, Suniel (Shetty) and Raveena are the Mohra team also. That’s why there’s a Mohra joke also in the film. I faced no problem with them on set.”
Welcome To The Jungle stars 34 odd actors. Getting their dates and bringing them together under one roof was no cakewalk. But Ahmed wanted to bring his vision to fruition, and he’s elated to see the audience recalling cult classics like Golmaal and Hera Pheri after watching the onscreen ‘camaraderie’ between the actors in his directorial outing.
“Each time, Akshay, Suniel and Paresh (Rawal) met, it was like Hera Pheri on set. Kandhe pe haath daal ke baat karte hai woh log. Akshay and Arshad (Warsi) remind you of Jolly LLB. When Tusshar (Kapoor), Shreyas (Talpade) and Johnny (Lever) bhai stand together, they remind me of Golmaal. There’s no aap or janaab. They sit on each other’s laps. The atmosphere was so good,” he remarks.
