Shah Rukh Khan and Juhi Chawla starrer Duplicate has completed 19 years of its release and Karan Johar , who was assisting director Mahesh Bhatt shared the picture with caption: "#19yearsofDuplicate...a film I worked on behind the scenes...@iamsrk @MaheshNBhatt released a few months before #KuchKuchHotaHai"
This was Bhatt Sr's last film as a director. Juhi about the film said, "I was in two minds because my character was not really doing anything substantial in the film. It was a sweet role but there was nothing to make me jump at. I remember I was working with Shah Rukh in Yes Boss (1997) at that time and after the shooting, we were at some bungalow in Mumbai when he sat me down and gave me a whole lecture for more than an hour on why I should be doing the film. After sitting and listening to him for so long, I was like 'okay, fine, maybe it’s not so bad and I am not looking at it correctly', so that’s how I agreed to then do the film."
Juhi said, "I lost my mother while shooting for Duplicate. We had reached Prague and it was Karan birthday the next day, so my mother and I bought a gift for him. Next morning, before I went for the shoot, she left for a walk and never came back. It was very traumatic because just a day before we had reached there and three days later after she met with an accident, we were bringing her back in a coffin. It was devastating for me."
Talking about SRK, she said, "He was the person who consoled me, as he had seen his parents pass away before that and knew the pain of losing a parent. So, he was trying to make me laugh and forget things."
The actress added, "I went through the mourning period but then I realised that the only way to come back to life was to go back to work and I did go back for Duplicate and Yes Boss—both were with Shah Rukh. Soon, I would look forward to the day because I knew I’d see him [SRK] there and somehow he’ll be fun and I’ll forget for that while what has happened and be okay with it as a bad dream. So in a way, he was special because he could just help me through that very difficult time of my life. So I have bittersweet memories of this film."
On the fact that SRK took a pay cut for Duplicate, Juhi said, "At that time, I was very young, so I didn’t go into all these things. I didn’t realise maybe, or he didn’t mention it to me.
But he was a joy to work with. "He would be very helpful. Even the director and producer would feel reassured that Shah Rukh is there, so things would go fine. He will work out the scenes, will help write and rehearse them."
Talking about an incident, she quipped, "If ever we felt that a scene wasn’t written well, Karan would actually sit down and write it for us. He wasn’t really assisting in the film but he was always around on the sets. He’s very gifted with scenes, especially those involving high profile people, so there were quite a few that he helped us with."
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