For Ileana D’Cruz, Barfi remains a special film of her career. But there was a moment when she decided to quit the film midway when filmmaker Anurag Basu shouted at her for no reason, leaving her feeling offended.
Anurag Basu’s Barfi with Ranbir Kapoor, Priyanka Chopra and Ileana D’Cruz in the lead role was released in 2012. Ileana D’Cruz looks back at Barfi memories
Ileana walked down the memory lane and spoke about her experience of working with Anurag Basu during an interview with NDTV. The film also featured Ranbir Kapoor and Priyanka Chopra in the lead role.
“One morning, I just walked in super happy in the morning on set and I was like, hey, how’s it going? And he was in a very bad mood. Something ticked him off and he lashed out on me and I got really offended. So, I said, Dada, listen, if you think I’m not right, for this role and if you’re not happy with the work I’ve done, I’ll leave. I’m not going to sue you. I will leave. I love the story so much and it won’t make me happy to be in a film like this if you don’t think I’m right for the part. He went one way I went the other way crying and called the producer. And I said, no, I’m leaving,” Ileana said.
She added, “I spoke to Vidya’s husband, Sid, and he said he’s on his way, just do the scenes. So I go, get ready, have my makeup on, And Dada comes walking back in and he’s the only one who used to call me Ilu. I don’t allow anybody call me Ilu. And he just simply said that I walked in at a bad time, and not to take him seriously. We laughed it off and hugged it out.”
About Barfi
Barfi was released in 2012. The film starred Ranbir, Ileana and Priyanka Chopra in the lead roles. It was directed by Anurag Basu and produced by Ronnie Screwvala and Siddharth Roy Kapur under UTV Motion Pictures.
Set in Darjeeling and Kolkata in the 1970s, the film focuses on Barfi (Ranbir), a deaf-mute man based in Darjeeling, and his relationships with Shruti (Ileana) and autistic Jhilmil (Priyanka). The film also featured Saurabh Shukla, Ashish Vidyarthi, Jisshu Sengupta, Roopa Ganguly and Haradhan Bandopadhyay.
About Ileana’s recent film
Ileana was last seen in Shirsha Guha Thakurta’s 2024 romantic comedy Do Aur Do Pyaar, which also starred Vidya Balan, Pratik Gandhi, and Sendhil Ramamurthy.