Rishi Kapoor's last scene is his close up shot which he insisted the director to take it

Sharmaji Namkeen director Hitesh Bhatia described the film as a "roller-coaster ride," with everything from moments of happiness to the heartwrenching news of Rishi Kapoor's death depicted. The director remarked that putting the movie together after Rishi Kapoor's death was "very difficult." Farhan Akhtar and Ritesh Sidhwani, on the other hand, gave him the strength and support that this film would see the light of day.

Days after Rishi Kapoor passed away, Farhan and Ritesh called me and told me not to worry. They said, ‘We will finish the film. We will release it.’ But I was like, he is no more. In my head, the film was just done with because how will you finish this film when he is gone. But they gave me the strength that we will figure this out. So, we tried a lot of things from his son Ranbir Kapoor stepping into the role to taking the help of VFX and then finally, casting Paresh Rawal for the role. It took me a lot of time to believe that we could finish this film.”

He further added “This film has got a life of its own. We wanted to stay true to what we started. There was an emotional commitment to ourselves, Ranbir Kapoor and Neetu Kapoor. Ranbir, Farhan, and Ritesh were very clear that it was Chintu ji’s last film, which is why the idea of Ranbir donning prosthetics and coming on board to finish the film was considered first. We seriously considered that, but it didn’t go anywhere.”

Paresh Rawal eventually came on board to finish the film. According to the filmmaker, he was on board within 10-15 minutes of being offered the film. Hitesh says that “Pareshji, very early on, decided that he believes in the script and really likes it. He also came from an emotional point that it was Chintu ji’s last film. Within 10-15 minutes, he was on board. Again, working with him was pure joy. He made the character his own. There was no brief to him about how to approach it, but it all worked out well in the end.”

As Hitesh remembered his time with Rishi Kapoor he also talked about how his last scene was so not like how Chintu Ji would ever ask a director to do. He recalls the incident and says, “The last scene we shot with Chintu Ji was a kulfi scene. And it is such an amazing sequence to recall. The last shot that he ever gave, I didn’t want to take a close-up. I was like, ‘We don’t need the close-up. We are done with the scene. Let’s wrap it.’ Chintu Ji, who never insists, wanted me to take the close-up as he believed it will add to the scene. The light was going badly. So, he asked the DOP to make the close-up happen no matter what. And eventually, we did the shot, not knowing it will become the last shot of his life.”

Sharmaji Namkeen is set to release on Amazon Prime Video on March 31.