Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra talks about the time when he got death threats and how he turned to alcohol after the failure of Delhi-6

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Published by Arushi Agrawal on 28 Jul 2021

Filmmaker Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra is a household name now with films like ‘Rang De Basanti’, ‘Toofan’ and ‘Bhaag Milkha Bhaag’ to his credit. But there was a time when the filmmaker was in a really dark place. It was the time after his 2009 directorial Delhi-6 starring Sonam Kapoor and Abhishek Bachchan failed miserably at the box office.

In his autobiography called ‘The Stranger in the Mirror’, Mehra talked about that dark time of his life. He revealed that for about 6 months after the release of the film, he slipped into darkness. He further talked about how the theatres were empty just after three days of the film’s release. He started questioning himself after that. He has also written about how he got death threats and was ‘going deeper and deeper into a dark hole’. He drowned in alcohol and wanted to ‘drink himself to death’.

Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra recently released his latest film, ‘Toofan’ a fictional sports drama starring Farhan Akhtar and Mrunal Thakur. The film was a resounding success and Mehra spoke about working with Farhan again after ‘Bhaag Milkha Bhaag’ “Over time, I have learned that you are either an actor or not and I have always seen an actor in Farhan. I had offered him a role in ‘Rang De Basanti’ 16 years ago.” Mehra further said that Farhan was amused and at that time it hadn’t occurred to him that he will act one day. He even read the script and responded to it, not as an actor but as a friend. So, for me, there is an actor in him.

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