When Deepika Padukone was afraid Irrfan Khan may look down upon her for ‘being a commercial heroine’

Irrfan Khan would have turned 56 on Saturday. The late actor was one of the most critically-acclaimed actors in India, and did not make much noise about his exemplary work in multiple big budget films in Hollywood. He was once paired with Deepika Padukone for an the 2015 film, Piku, and she admitted she was nervous about working with him. Deepika had once shared how she was afraid that he may look down upon her. Also read: Irrfan’s son Babil Khan runs to hug Tabu at Qala screening, fans get emotional

Irrfan and Deepika Padukone worked for the first time in Piku. It went on to win several awards in India and international film festivals, including three National Film Awards. Amitabh Bachchan won the National Film Award for Best Actor, Juhi Chaturvedi won for Best Original Screenplay and Best Dialogues.

Sharing her apprehensions about working with Irrfan, Deepika had said in a 2015 interview with PTI, “I thought he would be an intense actor, an intense person, everything about him is intense, courtesy media’s perception. I thought he would be stern and not interact and look down upon me thinking me being a commercial heroine. But he is very different from that.”

She had added, “He is humorous. There are similarities between us like he is also shy… He talks less but when he says, it is very funny. I think his comic timing is pretty untapped. And no amount of explanation can give justice to the fine talent that he is.”

Irrfan went on to become Deepika’s ‘favourite person’, who had attended the promotional event of her Hollywood debut film, XXX: Return of Xander Cage. Reacting to his death in 2020, Deepika shared a blank post on Instagram with a heartbroken emoji.

Irrfan had won a National Film Award and was the recipient of the Padma Shri. He had delivered several critically-acclaimed films including Academy Award winning films Slumdog Millionaire and Life of Pi, Salaam Bombay!, Life in a… Metro, Maqbool, Paan Singh Tomar, Piku, The Lunchbox, Haider and Hindi Medium are some of his most celebrated films.