Actor Zareen Khan made her debut opposite Salman Khan in the 2010 period drama ‘Veer‘. Early in her career, she was frequently compared to Katrina Kaif due to their similar looks. She later went on to appear in commercially successful films such as ‘Housefull 2’ and ‘Hate Story 3’.Zareen was also approached for ‘Aksar 2’, a sequel to the 2006 thriller ‘Aksar’, which originally starred Emraan Hashmi, Dino Morea and Udita Goswami. Directed by Anant Mahadevan, the film initially appeared to be a promising project. However, it later became surrounded by controversy, with Zareen claiming that she was not even invited to the premiere of her own film. Zareen recently revisited the issue in greater detail during a conversation with Pooja Bhatt on the Mammoth Media Asia podcast. Reflecting on the period after ‘Hate Story 3’, she said that many within the industry judged her harshly for doing bold scenes. “After I did ‘Hate Story’, a lot of people looked down on me, especially from the industry. They would say, ‘Because she cannot act, she decided to strip.’”Zareen also described her first interaction with Mahadevan. According to her, the filmmaker initially pitched the project as a stylish noir film and assured her that it would not revolve around bold scenes like those in ‘Hate Story 3’.“He narrated the script in very polished English and said, ‘We are not making a Hate Story. We are making a genre noir,’ or something along those lines. I thought, okay,” she said. “But once I reached the set, every other scene ended with a kiss or suddenly required me to be in a bra or something similar.”The actor clarified that she had no inherent objection to performing intimate scenes, but she felt the project had been misrepresented to her from the beginning.“I told him, ‘I don’t have a problem doing such scenes, but you gave me a completely different brief. Now, just because you saw that film work, you want to add these things.’ Later I realised the director was spineless. He would tell one version of the story to the producers and another to me and my costume designer Shahid Aamir.” According to Zareen, disagreements between the team members intensified as filming progressed.“There was so much animosity. The producers suddenly wanted me to do a bra scene, kiss, or something provocative in almost every sequence just because I had done one such film earlier. That’s not fair,” she said. Despite the mounting tensions, she decided to complete the film because she did not want the producers to suffer financial losses. However, she said the situation deteriorated by the time the project wrapped up.“I am not someone who throws tantrums. I know people’s money is at stake, so I always try to talk things out and find a middle ground. But by the time the film was finished, things had become so bad that I wasn’t even invited to the screening of my own film,” she said. Zareen also alleged that media reports at the time portrayed her unfairly as difficult to work with.“There were articles saying I was difficult to work with. I still have messages from the director where he complains about the producers to me—but what’s done is done,” she added. The actress further claimed that the conflict eventually divided the entire team. What started as creative disagreements between her and the director soon turned into larger disputes between Mahadevan and the producers as well, reportedly involving disagreements over payments.Mahadevan, however, previously dismissed the allegations in an interview with DNA India. “Nobody is more prepared than me in the industry. People come to me for low-budget films with clarity and planning. I found it amusing to read allegations of confusion, extra shots, etc. I rehearse like a play. Every shot was explained during rehearsals.” He also defended the film’s intimate scenes, saying they were not excessive.“Zareen may not have been used to that kind of filming. As for the smooches, I have repeatedly said that a few kisses do not make a film erotic. These days every other film has smooches, even a Karan Johar movie has them. There was nothing vulgar in my film. In fact, we have shot longer kisses, but we didn’t want an ‘A’ certificate because we wanted women to see the film and so edited them. Even the movie is driven by Zareen’s character. She has been through the entire shoot and dubbing sessions and she was quite thrilled with the results. If there was anything to this effect, it would have come out then. She even happily confessed in her interviews that she excitedly looked forward to the female-oriented film! I don’t know if she has been instigated, but whatever she says doesn’t hold water.”
