When Vidhu Vinod Chopra ripped Nana Patekar’s clothes during fight on Parinda set, said that even cops were concerned: ‘I learned to abuse due to him’

In a recent interview, actor Nana Patekar didn’t mince any words as he reflected on working with director Vidhu Vinod Chopra on the 1989 film Parinda. He said that they often clashed on set, and that every time he meets the filmmaker now, he wishes it were the last. The two personalities are known to be fiery, and the filmmaker spoke about how the clashed on the Parinda sets last year, when he was promoting his latest project, 12th Fail.

Appearing on the singing reality show Sa Re Ga Ma Pa, Vidhu Vinod Chopra was asked by host Aditya Narayan what his equation with the equally fiery Nana Patekar was like on set, and the filmmaker responded by narrating several anecdotes. “I’d seen Nana in a play called Purush, and it’s very important to say this, but those days, I never used to curse. I was a very well-behaved young man from Kashmir. But it all changed because of Nana,” The filmmaker rose to his feet as he said this.

Also read – ‘My biggest ambition was to pee in Amitabh Bachchan’s vanity van’: Vidhu Vinod Chopra admits he was ‘very rude’ to Big B during first meeting, says Rekha was present Advertisement He continued, “When I’d direct him in a scene, he’d hurl abuses at me. I wondered how I would direct him at all. So, that’s when I started abusing him back. I started swearing only because I had to direct Nana.” Narrating the story behind one memorable scene, the director continued, “There’s a scene in the film where Nana asks if he has tears in his eyes after his wife has died… We’d been shooting all day, and it was late in the evening. Nana declared that he was too tired to continue and that he was going home. I told him, ‘Sure, you pay for the overheads then’. He started swearing at me, I swore back, and in the scuffle, I tore his kurta. The cops on set said, ‘We’re here to protect you, and you’re fighting among yourselves’.” He said that the cameraman, Binod Pradhan, abruptly yelled that the shot was ready even as the fight was going on. Vinod Chopra quickly walked out of frame, and Nana rushed to his mark. “If you watch the scene, he’s wearing a vest in it because his kurta had just been torn. The tears that you see in his eyes are real because we’d just fought. Later, we hugged it out and he told me, ‘I was nervous about the scene’. That’s how Parinda was made.” Vidhu Vinod Chopra said that the film was made for just Rs 12 lakh, and that the production didn’t even have enough money for catering. Everybody would get their own meals from home. “The first fight we had was over food, because he asked for lunch. I asked him, ‘Ghar se nahi laaya khaana (Didn’t you get food from home)?’ In an interview with The Lallantop recently, Nana Patekar was also asked about Parinda, and he said that he would get angry at Vinod when he’d call ‘action’ too loudly. “Every time I meet him, I wish it to be the last,” he said.

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