Vikram Bhatt’s Raaz starring Dino Morea and Bipasha Basu set a precedent like no other horror or horrex film. Its music is remembered to date with scenes and dialogues from the film making it to memes across social media. The scintillating chemistry between the lead pair was much talked about and Dino and Bipasha’s off-screen romance translated onscreen rather cinematically. The lovebirds met on a blind date set up by a common friend during their supermodel days but it was also during the shoot of Raaz, their whirlwind romance ended.
Now in an exclusive chat with News18 Showsha, Vikram opens up on how their break-up impacted the mood on the set of Raaz. Recalling an episode, he tells us, “I remember a tragicom situation where we were shooting for their wedding song, Main Agar Saamne. There’s this line in the song – Apni shaadi ke din abb nahi door hai – and it was during this scene that they were both fighting. I remember Bipasha crying and Dino unhappy.”
What followed was that the helpless director decided to have a chat with both of them and suggested they postpone their fight so that the shoot could happen seamlessly. “I told them said, ‘Guys, you can’t fight! We’re shooting a shaadi ka song. Why don’t you suspend the ceasefire for two days?’ And then we had lunch together. But yes, their relationship was falling apart. I’m not the kind of person who goes into the personal lives of his actors. So, I don’t know what had transpired. Soon after Raaz, it completely fell apart,” he says.
Not many know that Bipasha, whose career received a boost after the film, wasn’t the first choice for it. It was Lisa Ray who was supposed to play Sanjana Dhanraj. Bipasha stepped in only after the latter exited for personal reasons. Talking about it, Vikram says, “Dino was someone who Mukesh (Bhatt; producer) ji had suggested. I remember editing Kasoor at that point in time and he came to meet me.”
He adds, “He had a film that was released before Raaz with Twinkle’s sister, Rinke, called Pyaar Mein Kabhi Kabhi. But that didn’t do too well. He was obviously a good-looking boy who had a career in front of him. It was Lisa who was supposed to play Bipasha’s role and we did one schedule with her and Dino. Unfortunately, she had some personal issues because of which she couldn’t continue the shoot.”
And it was on Dino’s recommendation that the Ghulam and 1920 director agreed to take the script of Raaz to his then-girlfriend. “At that time, Bipasha and Dino were dating. He said to me, ‘Why don’t you meet Bipasha? She might be good for the film.’ Back then, she was also doing a film called Ajnabee with Abbas-Mastan and it was written by a senior colleague of mine, Robin Bhatt. I called him up and asked him about her and he told me that she’s really good. I narrated the script of Raaz to her and she came onboard,” he shares.
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