Anurag Basu 'chased' Irrfan and tried to persuade him for 'Life in a Metro' after a bad narration

Time of India

6 hours ago

Director
Anurag Basu
, who is awaiting the release of his upcoming film 'Metro...In Dino', has shared his memories of working with the late actor Irrfan, and the late singer KK in 'Life in a Metro'.
The director spoke with IANS ahead of the release of 'Metro...In Dino', and recollected working with Irrfan, and said that he tried to persuade him a lot after he mixed it up initially during the narration. Anurag said that he is a very bad narrator, and that kind of affected Irrfan's judgement of the script.
Anurag told IANS, "I had chased Irrfan. When I narrated the story to Irrfan, he thought his role was not very meaty.
I'm a very bad narrator. I couldn't give him confidence that his role is really good. So, I called up Sutapa, and I asked her to please convince him. She eventually convinced him, and when we shot the first scene with him, he was very happy".
He further mentioned, "We were shooting in Juhu. Sutapa called me. The scene was half way through, she said, 'Irrfan is very happy'. I told her, 'He's not telling me. He's telling you?' (laughs) Oh.
So yeah, all those memories of Irrfan are priceless".
He also shared his experience of working with KK, as he said that it was music composer Pritam, who wanted KK to sing the cult-classic song 'Alvida'.
He said, "Pritam really wanted KK to sing 'Alvida'. I remember he came from Pune. A lot of memories, very fond and pleasant memories".
Earlier, Anurag had shared that in his opinion the film belongs more to Pritam than him.
The two have been working together for almost 20 years now with 'Metro...In Dino' marking another collaboration for them.
He said, "'Metro...In Dino' is more of Pritam than mine. When you see the film as a whole you will understand how music is so important for this film. It's like a thread. A string to tie everything together".
When asked how both of them create chartbuster music consistently, the director said, "It just happens.
We have very similar choices of everything. From food, music to everything. I remember some of the songs and no one remembers them in the room except Pritam. Somehow our taste in music and the kind of artists we follow are very similar. There is no process of making a song and then a story".
Presented by Gulshan Kumar & T-Series presents, in association with Anurag Basu Productions Pvt. Ltd., 'Metro In Dino' is produced by Bhushan Kumar, Krishan Kumar, Anurag Basu, and Taani Basu.
The film is set to arrive in cinemas on July 4, 2025.