During the making of the star-making Ek Duuje Ke Liye Kamal Haasan and Rati Agnihotri didn’t speak to one another for almost the entire shooting. They would give their shots and go their separate ways to their respective corners of the location.
So what happened? In a throwback interview, Kamal Haasan revealed, for the first and last time, the reason for their cold war. “I was upset with her because she had given an interview against K.Balachanderji. He was not only the director of Ek Duuje Ke Liye, he was the reason I was who I was in the Tamil film industry. I was his watchdog at that time. I have eaten all the beef and bones in his compound and I am well chained to his backyard. I bite and bark at anyone who hits out at him. But even my wife(then wife Sarika) felt I had really let go on that girl(Rati). My Guruji was very upset with her words. I said ‘Nahin Saab aap nahin baat karenge.Main baat karunga.’
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The cold war lasted as long as the film. The pair had already signed another film Dekha Pyar Tumhara which they completed cordially. But nothing thereafter.
Rati Agnihotri had once admitted that she felt isolated on the sets of Ek Duuje Ke Liye. She remembered feeling quite isolated on the sets. She was scared of Balachander. She kept wondering if he was angry with her. Rati, who was 16 at the time, had to bring out complex emotions like love, longing and parting. She knew none of the emotions that she had to express. She would just follow what the director said.
Kamal Haasan and Rati Agnihotri are not the only screen pair to complete a film while being personally hostile. Dilip Kumar and Madhubala had a fallout while shooing for Mughal-e-Azam and didn’t speak to one another. All the legendary romantic scenes were shot through the couple’s mutual hostility.
Vyjayanthimala and Dharmendra didn’t speak a word to one another off-camera while shooting Pyar Hi Pyar.