Akshay Kumar and Priyanka Chopra had shot for Barsaat, which would have been their sixth film together, until Akshay opted out of the film due to family pressure. The film which was made with Bobby Deol is premiering on television today, October 8, 2017
In a television show earlier this year, Akshay Kumar had opened up on his reported fall-out with Priyanka Chopra after they last teamed up in the 2005 film, Waqt: Race Against Time, stating that if an opportunity arose, he would surely work with the actress again. It is a little known fact that the successful duo were all set to be teamed for the sixth time in Suneel Darshan’s Barsaat.
Apparently their crackling chemistry in Aitraaz and the great rapport they shared off screen, had reportedly prompted a number of makers to sign them on the dotted line, Barsaat being one of them. However Akshay reportedly withdrew out of the projects starring the two together, after the speculative reports about their relationship began to affect his family life. Later it was Priyanka who made it official that the two were unlikely to work again.
Suneel Darshan recently recalled how he was at the receiving end when the two resolved not to work with each other, “I had signed Akshay, Priyanka and Katrina for the film and we had shot a considerable portion of the film but Akshay decided to ease out of the movie at one stage due to his personal problems. I guess it had a lot to do with the reports linking them to each other. I then replaced him with Bobby Deol. Subsequently there were date adjustments and Katrina had to be replaced with Bipasha Basu and the movie was finally made. The rest is history,” Darshan recalled.
The movie is not among Priyanka Chopra’s best known performances but Suneel Darshan who also produced the 2003 Priyanka Chopra starrer, Andaaz, insists that it was Barsaat that successfully helped the actress come out of the glamour girl image that she had come to acquire, “Barsaat was planned to de-glamourise Priyanka and present her as a conservative beautiful girl, who was at the same time sensuous and attractive. While working with her in Andaaz, I felt that Priyanka was eager to break the shell and make her presence in a film that would bring out her best. She had a beautiful voice and expressive eyes. The audience had a certain image of her and I wanted to contradict that by presenting her and making her look beautiful even in traditional salwar-kameez.”
Suneel Darshan feels that the movie will always stand out in Priyanka’s portfolio of work as a film to remember, “It was a subtle tribute to the modern young woman, who walks out of the kitchen and is hailed for her family values. That was what Priyanka represented in the film and she made a perfect pairing with Bobby Deol who was at the nadir of his career at that time. So was the luscious Bipasha Basu, who looked beautiful in every frame of the movie. Nadeem Shravan’s fantastic musical score made the romantic tale extremely memorable,” Suneel Darshan recalled, adding that the film was a huge success in the overseas in UK territory where it grossed 454,660 pounds.
