Sonali Kulkarni was only a couple of Hindi films old when she played Pooja, the effervescent love interest of Saif Ali Khan’s character Sameer in Farhan Akhtar’s 2001 directorial debut Dil Chahta Hai. The seminal buddy comedy completes 25 years since release today. The actor, best known for doing arthouse cinema in Marathi, was cast by Farhan’s sister Zoya Akhtar, who also served as the film’s casting director.
“I interacted with Zoya first because she’d seen some photo of mine. She kept fighting with the person who showed her the photo, ‘This is not Sonali. I have seen her in arthouse cinema, and she doesn’t look like this.’ It was a typical photo shoot. She connected with me and asked me to audition. We laughed so much while canning the audition. Zoya was giving me the cues, and we improvised. I loved the vibe,” Sonali says on SCREEN Spotlight.
She initially feared if she’d feel out of place on the set, given she belongs to a simple Maharashtrian family from Pune, which was as good as a “small town” back in the late 1990s. “I don’t know fashion or luxury. But Zoya was the key person who led me to Dil Chahta Hai. She doesn’t come across as the super fashionable, rich person. She’s very passionate and grounded. She loves cinema and performance. That has stayed with me till date,” adds the actor, who now hopes to and manifests working with Zoya now that the latter is an accomplished filmmaker herself.
“People mattered quite a lot on Dil Chahta Hai set. What I remember about Farhan and Ritesh (Sidhwani, co-producer) is their friendship. They’re genuine friends, who don’t talk about how thick they are,” says Sonali Kulkarni. Twenty five years later, Farhan and Ritesh are still going strong, running and expanding their production house Excel Entertainment together.
“I was overjoyed I was working with Preity all over again after Mission Kashmir. We cheered for each other,” adds Sonali. She made her mainstream Hindi debut just a year before Dil Chahta Hai as Neelima Khan, the adoptive mother of Hrithik Roshan’s character in Vidhu Vinod Chopra’s 2000 action thriller Mission Kashmir, which starred Preity Zinta in the lead role. Preity played Shalini, the love interest of Aamir Khan’s Akash in Dil Chahta Hai.
Sonali Kulkarni says her transition into peak mainstream Hindi cinema was also aided by the “incredible” team of technicians. “Arjun Bhasin (costume designer) is a very warm person. He actually helped me wear all those clothes. Adhuna (Bhabani) and Avan (Contractor, hairstylists) coloured my hair. They never treated me like a rustic fool. They saw Pooja in me, and they treated me like Pooja. They made me comfortable. I’m ever grateful, of course for the success the film earned later, but also for the treatment and affection I got on set,” says the actor.
Even though Zoya Akhtar and choreographer Farah Khan “rolled on the floor, laughing” while watching Sonali wear the bouffant, sitting on the car bonnet, emoting like a yesteryear actor, and romancing Saif Ali Khan in the memorable song “Wo Ladki Hai Kahan”, Sonali was eager to receive compliments and she did get them. She also didn’t mind the rather stringent discipline on set; in fact, she embraced it quite readily.
“Mobiles had come to India, so there was a new rule on set. I like discipline, routine, and a plan of action. Dil Chahta Hai was the first set in my career where if the shot time was 9 am, the shot would start at 9 am. We were given half an hour for makeup at 8 am, 15 minutes for hair, 10 minutes for costume, and five minutes for the actor to walk to the set,” recalls Sonali.
She later got to know that the assistant directors responsible for making that call sheet were Reema Kagti and Apoorva Lakhia, who would become seasoned filmmakers themselves in the years to come. “It was such a welcome change! Nothing was taken for granted. Everything was planned meticulously, and so was fun. There was never a single day which was tense, where somebody is angry or not in the mood. There were hardly any fights on set,” she adds.
Dil Chahta Hai was a game-changer for not only Sonali Kulkarni, but also her co-star Saif Ali Khan. It was the milestone that marked a makeover in his image, dialling up his metrosexual persona — only to be followed by more of the same, from Nikkhil Advani’s Kal Ho Naa Ho (2003), Kunal Kohli’s Hum Tum (2004) — that even fetched him a National Award — to Siddharth Anand’s Salaam Namaste (2005) among others.
“The other day, somebody mentioned I’m one of those rare actors who got to work with Sharmila ji and Saif. Only Sara (Ali Khan, daughter) is left now,” says Sonali, laughing. She recently acted alongside Saif’s mother and veteran actor Sharmila Tagore in Sunil Sukthankar’s 2024 slice-of-life film Outhouse.
“Dil Chahta Hai was the beginning of Saif’s coming-to-himself phase. I enjoy the way he works, develops a scene, and the performances we’ve seen off late,” says Sonali. “I remember him as a very caring and relaxed co-star. I learnt from him to carry my own music to set. We all have our phones now, but he’d carry a handy music player, CDs, and cassettes. He’d change the vibration in the room,” she adds.
Sonali admits she never felt back then that Saif was the son of Sharmila and legendary cricketer Mansoor Ali Khan aka Tiger Pataudi. “Everybody wanted to make the scene work. He was brilliant. He was open, calm, and energetic — a superb combination,” says Sonali in signature Pooja effervescent fashion, hoping she gets to reunite with her Sameer soon.
