When late actor Irrfan Khan walked into a frame, it was almost impossible for the audience to take their eyes off him so one can imagine that his fellow actors must get intimated by that presence in real life as well. Irrfan was a celebrated actor during his lifetime, both in India and internationally. But one of his most cherished performances came in the 2015 film Piku, directed by Shoojit Sircar, which also starred Deepika Padukone and Amitabh Bachchan. While the film had three celebrated stars, but as per Deepika’s own admission, she was actually nervous before sharing screen space with Irrfan as she thought that he would “look down” upon her for being a mainstream actor.
In Piku, Deepika played the titular character who goes on a road trip with her father, played by Amitabh Bachchan, in a cab driven by Irrfan’s character Rana. The slice-of-life film was loved for its humour and had all the three actors at their A-game. In an earlier interview with PTI, Deepika had shared her thoughts about working with Irrfan and said, “I thought he would be an intense actor, an intense person, everything about him is intense, courtesy media’s perception. I thought he would be stern and not interact and look down upon me for being a commercial heroine. But he is very different from that.”
Calling him “humorous” and “shy,” she also added, “He talks less but when he says, it is very funny. I think his comic timing is pretty untapped. And no amount of explanation can give justice to the fine talent that he is.”
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Years later, in Shubhra Gupta’s book Irrfan: A Life in Movies, director Shoojit Sircar said that Irrfan was expecting Piku to be a love story because it had Deepika. He also spoke about how landing the part in this film was “a big moment for him” because “an A-grade actress had agreed to work with him.” He also added, “That helped them bond, because Deepika was scared that she was going to work with Irrfan.”
He reiterated that Deepika was “scared in the beginning” because Irrfan “was an artist.” “On the other hand, Irrfan was not scared of working with her, he was more excited that he would work with a popular mainstream actress.”
Irrfan passed away on April 29, 2020, in Mumbai after a long battle against cancer. He was 53.
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