Uploaded August 2026 | Updated September 2026, 3 weeks ago
Anupama Chopra sits down with Zoya Akhtar for the final weekend of the Nilaya Monsoon Film Festival, marking 15 years of Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara. Akhtar traces the film back to friendship as chosen family — a bond she and Farhan formed young, after their parents' divorce, in a city where that was still uncommon — and unpacks the preparation behind it: the extensive backstories she wrote for Arjun, Imraan and Kabir that never appear on screen, and the confidence that let her make a Hrithik Roshan film with no hero entry, no elevation shot and no Hrithik-Katrina song. She explains why she resisted the song despite pressure, how the three actors ended up driving themselves through most of the film after the low loader made it look like Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, and where Laila's kiss came from. She talks through the Pamplona bull run, shot at the real San Fermín location with twelve bulls and exactly one CGI shot, the 16 tonnes of tomatoes flown in from Portugal for the Tomatina sequence, and her decision to play the Salman Habib scene without a single note of background score, because scoring it would have told the audience what to feel.
Akhtar also responds to the criticisms the film has attracted over 15 years, defending Natasha as clear-headed rather than villainous and addressing the charge that her characters are only ever privileged. She recalls a letter from a 14-year-old, a grandmother who booked a trip after watching it, and the night she saw the film in London with India's World Cup-winning cricket team. On the long-rumoured sequel, prompted by the Zindagi Ko Yas Bol campaign that fans mistook for a trailer, she will say only that she and Reema Kagti are on it — and confirms the genre she still wants to crack is the gangster film. The audience Q&A covers changing the script on set, Hrithik Roshan's suggestion that Natasha reject him to make the scene more embarrassing, the Doordarshan Sunday-evening sound that shaped one of the film's most quietly devastating beats, how she and Kagti have stopped arguing for the sake of arguing, and the skydiving footage shot by Joe Jennings that her mother told her, flatly, was boring and needed cutting. Subscribe to The Hollywood Reporter India for more conversations from the Nilaya Monsoon Film Festival.
0:00 Introduction
2:49 The backstories she wrote and never filmed
5:32 No hero entry, and the Hrithik-Katrina song she refused
10:42 Laila's kiss, and Katrina Kaif's one impulsive act
13:32 The Pamplona bull run, and the one CGI shot
16:01 16 tonnes of tomatoes flown in from Portugal
18:52 Answering the criticism of how Natasha was written
24:25 The ZNMD sequel: "We are on it"
31:44 Q&A: changing the script on set, and Hrithik's idea
37:04 The skydive, and her mother's note: "It's boring"
#zoyaakhtar #ZindagiNaMilegiDobara #THRIndia
Anupama Chopra sits down with Zoya Akhtar for the final weekend of the Nilaya Monsoon Film Festival, marking 15 years of Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara. Akhtar traces the film back to friendship as chosen family — a bond she and Farhan formed young, after their parents' divorce, in a city where that was still uncommon — and unpacks the preparation behind it: the extensive backstories she wrote for Arjun, Imraan and Kabir that never appear on screen, and the confidence that let her make a Hrithik Roshan film with no hero entry, no elevation shot and no Hrithik-Katrina song. She explains why she resisted the song despite pressure, how the three actors ended up driving themselves through most of the film after the low loader made it look like Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, and where Laila's kiss came from. She talks through the Pamplona bull run, shot at the real San Fermín location with twelve bulls and exactly one CGI shot, the 16 tonnes of tomatoes flown in from Portugal for the Tomatina sequence, and her decision to play the Salman Habib scene without a single note of background score, because scoring it would have told the audience what to feel.
Akhtar also responds to the criticisms the film has attracted over 15 years, defending Natasha as clear-headed rather than villainous and addressing the charge that her characters are only ever privileged. She recalls a letter from a 14-year-old, a grandmother who booked a trip after watching it, and the night she saw the film in London with India's World Cup-winning cricket team. On the long-rumoured sequel, prompted by the Zindagi Ko Yas Bol campaign that fans mistook for a trailer, she will say only that she and Reema Kagti are on it — and confirms the genre she still wants to crack is the gangster film. The audience Q&A covers changing the script on set, Hrithik Roshan's suggestion that Natasha reject him to make the scene more embarrassing, the Doordarshan Sunday-evening sound that shaped one of the film's most quietly devastating beats, how she and Kagti have stopped arguing for the sake of arguing, and the skydiving footage shot by Joe Jennings that her mother told her, flatly, was boring and needed cutting. Subscribe to The Hollywood Reporter India for more conversations from the Nilaya Monsoon Film Festival.
0:00 Introduction
2:49 The backstories she wrote and never filmed
5:32 No hero entry, and the Hrithik-Katrina song she refused
10:42 Laila's kiss, and Katrina Kaif's one impulsive act
13:32 The Pamplona bull run, and the one CGI shot
16:01 16 tonnes of tomatoes flown in from Portugal
18:52 Answering the criticism of how Natasha was written
24:25 The ZNMD sequel: "We are on it"
31:44 Q&A: changing the script on set, and Hrithik's idea
37:04 The skydive, and her mother's note: "It's boring"
#zoyaakhtar #ZindagiNaMilegiDobara #THRIndia
