Fardeen Khan recalls how the producers he had signed films with backed out after his debut film Prem Aggan flopped in 1998. He remembers how father Feroz Khan’s tough love helped him deal with the situation.
Fardeen Khan returned to showbiz last year with Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Netflix India period drama Heeramandi: The Diamond Bazaar and Mudassar Aziz’s drama Khel Khel Mein and this week with Tarun Mansukhani’s comedy Housefull 5. But like many second-generation actors of his generation, the first few years were tough.
Reflecting on the box office failure and negative reviews of his late father Feroz Khan’s 1998 romantic drama Prem Aggan, Fardeen said, “Of course, it was tough. The criticism was harsh.”
Fardeen said, “The people I was supposed to work with in my next few projects changed their minds and backed out of the project. The money had to be returned. It was a good opportunity to really sit and think.”
On the Cyrus Sez podcast, Fardeen recalled that Feroz Khan gave him a proper ultimatum after Prem Aggan flopped. “He said, ‘We tried, we failed.’ I’m putting a roof over your head. I’ll give you a certain amount every month. After that, you’re on your own,” Fardeen said.
It was a beautiful decision. He said I’ve sent you to one of the best universities in the world. Feroz Khan told Fardeen that he was just 13 years old when his father died. His family had five brothers and a sister, and he had to take care of all of them. “He said, ‘I had a dream, I fulfilled it.
Now let’s see what you’re made of.’ It was as simple as that. It was exactly what I needed to hear at that time. His love was relentless! That tells you what kind of a person he was,” Fardeen said. Fardeen confessed that he was more interested in filmmaking than being in front of the camera.
But after coming back from film school abroad, his father decided to launch him as an actor in Prem Aggan. “I had a director who was not only my father but also an iconic actor. So you just worry that something might go wrong.
You tend to take the pressure and push it away, especially in cases like mine whose father is iconic in many ways. If you think about it, you’re over it. You just try to be honest to yourself and the words written on the script. And you try not to mess it up,” he said.
Fardeen also argued that in those days actors used to shoot on film instead of digital. Fardeen said, “It was a big chunk of the budget. It was just about not doing anything wrong and going with the process. I had no say in the dialogues or the script because I hadn’t earned my due in any way.”
After Prem Aggan, Fardeen worked in Ram Gopal Varma’s 2000 survival thriller Jungle. When Feroz Khan died in 2009, Fardeen was 35 years old.
