10 Facts You Don’t Know About Dear Zindagi

1. Shah Rukh Khan initially was hesitant to do the film. In his long and fruitful career he has only worked with one female director Farah Khan whose films do not convey any signs of femininity. So  in a  way Dear Zindagi was SRK’s first film from the feminine point of view.

2. Once Shah Rukh was convinced about the project he  not only agreed to do Dear Zindagi he also expressed a desire to produce the film. This is Shah Rukh’s only home production where he doesn’t play the central character.Alia is clearly the focal point of the script.

3. Though she is just a few years older than  his daughter and though he  had known Alia from when she was 2 years old, Shah Rukh refused to treat her like a child on the sets. Throughout the making the film  Shah Rukh and Alia were friends sharing experiences beyond their script.

4. Shah Rukh first saw Alia when she visited her father’s set of Chaahat.She was 2 and she was a talkative noisy demanding attention-seeker. Not much has changed. Apparently Shah Rukh had told Alia’s dad Mahesh Bhatt that his daughter would be a  star one day.

5. Alia’s wish-list of co-stars included three names Shah Rukh Khan,Salman Khan and Hugh Jackman. She has already got one-third of her wish.

6. Alia’s character Kaira is partly based on director Gauri Shinde and her first heartbreak.In fact Alia has incorporated several of Gauri’s mannerisms and talking style into her character.Alia, we gather, has also dug into her own experiences with heartbreak  to make the  character as relatable as possible.

7. Though the director Gauri Shinde’s husband filmmaker R Balki was busy with his own film Ki & Kahe made sure he was there to support his wife’s new film in every way. He not only sat with her over all the financial details he also rang up Shah Rukh who was the original choice  for Dhanush’s role in Balki’s Shamitabh, and fixed up an appointment  with the superstar for his wife.The rest, as they say, was chemistry.

8. Shah Rukh,a diehard Sridevi fan(like all of us) had seen and loved Gauri Shinde’s English Vinglish.He agreed to play Jahangir Khanin Dear Zindagi  knowing fully well Alia had the more prominent role. In fact the film’s credit titles will feature Alia’s name  before Shah Rukh’s.

9. Amit Trivedi who did the music for Gauri’s English Vinglish was the first and only choice to do the score in Dear Zindagi. He was the first technician to come on board. Gauri is unlikely to direct any film without Amit Trivedi’s music. Just like Ilaiyaraja is her husband Balki’s preferred music maker.

10. Dear Zindagi is being given a cautious release. Though it has the backing of  three big production houses owned by Shah Rukh Khan, Karan Johar and R Balki it is being rightly seen as a film that would grow gradually in popularity. In that sense this is more in the Kundan Shah-Ketan Mehta territory of Shah Rukh Khan’s career than Farah Khan-Rohit Shetty.