Actress Preeti Jhangiani, who made her Bollywood debut with Yash Raj Films’ 2000 blockbuster Mohabbatein, looked back on her experience of working with Shah Rukh Khan and Amitabh Bachchan. In an exclusive conversation with the Free Press Journal, she spoke about the exceptional training she received at YRF, the equality maintained on set despite the presence of two superstars, and how the warmth of SRK and Big B helped her overcome her initial shyness.
She emphasised that there was absolutely no hierarchy or special treatment for anyone on the sets of Mohabbatein, not even the biggest stars. “Absolutely no distinction between anybody on the set. Everybody received exactly the same thing. There were many other actors in the film, and in fact, Mr. Shah Rukh Khan and Mr. Amitabh Bachchan themselves are so humble. They don’t let you feel that you’re talking to a big superstar. They’re so down-to-earth. I remember Shah Rukh sitting on the floor with a spot boy and chatting with him about his life and everything. I remember he was just sitting there and chatting with him. Nobody had a chair with their name on it or anything. There was no such thing. Later on, with other stars that this happened and when I saw it, and I said, ‘Oh my God.’ So that showbaazi is something that people who need to show it, show it. But in Yash Raj, they don’t need to do that, and I don’t think anybody feels the need to do that either. And I really liked that because I came from a school of thought and a kind of place where all of this was not appreciated, and I didn’t like it. I never liked this whole idea of having my spot boy stand over me and offer me and my mom juice. We were so uncomfortable with that whole side of it till we realised that this is what people expect and this is what they do on the set. I come from a different school of thought. I was born and brought up in Mumbai, and till date I don’t appreciate that kind of thing that people expect you to do.”
Preeti recalled that though she was very shy, both superstars were warm, charming and approachable. “I was very chill with Mr. Bachchan and with Shah Rukh Khan as well. I think they’re very charming. They're so lovely and easy to talk to that they put you at ease. I obviously must have felt a little bit in awe. And of course, I was very young and I was painfully shy also. I was very, very shy in general. But I always remember them as being very magnanimous and very humble and very easy to talk to and approach. It wasn’t hard to approach them. They didn’t have, like, a plethora of people around them, which I did see with other actors later on.”
Preeti also said the training she received during Mohabbatein was unlike anything she had experienced before. “Yash Raj Films… I think nobody else could have given me the kind of training ground that they created for me. In spite of having done so much work before, I had done about 50–60 ad films already, 3–4 Telugu films, 1 Malayalam film and 1 Tamil film before Mohabbatein, I feel that the training ground that Mohabbatein set for me was something I wouldn’t have learnt anywhere else. I’ll always be grateful to Adi and to Yash Ji for that.”
