4 min readMumbaiFeb 19, 2026 08:10 AM IST
A great deal of credit has rightly been given to films like Bandit Queen and Satya for transforming the landscape of Hindi cinema. Yet, if there is one film that truly came to define rooted storytelling, it would be Haasil, directed by Tigmanshu Dhulia. The film featured Irrfan Khan in a role that firmly placed him on the map. He portrayed a character who could be described as an anti-hero rather than a conventional antagonist, a performance that is still regarded as one of his most hard-hitting turns on screen. However, Irrfan was not Dhulia’s original choice. In an exclusive conversation with SCREEN, the filmmaker revealed that he had initially approached his longtime friend and then-rising star Manoj Bajpayee for the role.
Manoj Bajpayee refused to play a villain
“See honestly, I didn’t go to Irrfan initially. Because Satya had already released, so I went to Manoj Bajpayee and he had become a star. Manoj and I were very good friends, we still are. When I narrated the story to him, he said, ‘I won’t play a villain’s role.’ I told him, ‘Yes, he is a villain, but not that kind of villain, he is an interesting villain.’ But he is my friend; once he refused, I didn’t go back to him again. I didn’t even try much to convince him further.”
Irrfan Khan instantly gained complete command over his character.
Dhulia went on to explain how Irrfan eventually came on board. “Then I went to Irrfan and he already knew that I had pitched it to Manoj before. I sent him to Allahabad ten days before the shoot and handed him over to some of my friends. That’s it. He explored the place, met people, I don’t really know what he did , but he grabbed the character immediately, right there and then.”
Watch the episode of Cult Comebacks on Haasil here:
In the same conversation, Dhulia also revealed that the production ran into serious trouble while attempting to shoot at Allahabad University. According to him, higher authorities believed the film portrayed the institution and student politics in a negative light. The situation escalated dramatically, and he even began receiving threats if he continued filming.
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Why the word ‘Allahabad’ was banned from Haasil
“I was called to the district magistrate’s office where all the former student union presidents of the university were sitting. And they warned me that they would break all our shooting vehicles and blacken my face, seat me on a donkey, and parade me around the entire city. And I was alone, they were all these men sitting in front of me, and I started crying.”
Faced with mounting hostility, Dhulia eventually sought help from Jaya Bachchan. “Then eventually I had to call Jaya ji and she helped me a lot. She called Amar Singh ji and he made a few calls, and the revolt and the animosity against me subsided. But they said you can’t use the term ‘Allahabad’ in the film, and somehow I made the film without using the name.”
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