Kirron Kher: “I was to play role of a gay rights activist in Dostana sequel”

Celebrating the ninth anniversary of the super hit film ‘Dostana’ (2008), Kirron Kher has shared that director Tarun Mansukhani had approached her with the script for the sequel of ‘Dostana’, where her character was to join politics.

Going back nine years, when actors Abhishek Bachchan and John Abraham played the role of a pretend gay couple on-screen in Mansukhani’s ‘Dostana’, the moviegoers were in for a pleasurable surprise. The film was marketed to be the first of its kind in Hindi Cinema, where two men were pretending to be gay to share an apartment with a girl (played by Priyanka Chopra) and both of the men end up falling in love with her.

Kher, who played the role of Bachchan’s mother in the film, recently went down memory lane with Hindustan Times and remembered on how enjoyable it was to shoot for the film in Miami and Mumbai.

Admitting that she didn’t have any clear memories of the time when she shot for the film, Kher said she particularly remembered her dialogue where she blessed her son (played by Bachchan) and gave her kangan (bracelets) to his partner (played by Abraham) as a token of shagun. Kher said, “the funniest part was when I said my dialogue ‘jeete raho… phoolo phalo’, Tarun, our director, suddenly came to me and said ‘khair chhodo, yeh to ho nahi sakta’ (anyway, it can’t happen, so, leave it). So, that ‘Khair chhodo’ was something that wasn’t in the script and was added pronto. And it literally brought the house down in the theatre and even on set when we shot the scene.”

In 2012, there were reports that the makers were planning a sequel to ‘Dostana’ with added cast members. In regards to this, Kher said, “yes, Tarun had come to be with the script and they had written a couple of versions of the sequel, but apparently, were not satisfied with it. I read it and heard the narration too and it was quite interesting but I don’t know what happened after that, as it didn’t materialise.”

Talking further on the idea of the sequel, Kher went onto say that, “In the sequel, my character goes on to join politics and is running something of her own and had turned into a gay rights activist. So, it was quite interesting that way. Let’s see if that happens in future, as nothing has come up in all these years, so I can’t say.”