Dil Chahta Hai at 25: Akshaye Khanna slapped Aamir Khan 17 times for the fight scene— 'his face was swollen and red'

Two and a half decades after Dil Chahta Hai changed what a Hindi film friendship could look like, the cast is still swapping stories about the scenes that hurt the most, literally.

Recently, a reunion interview was held with Yuva, where the cast mulled over some of the best memories. Suchitra Pillai, who played Saif Ali Khan's on-screen possessive girlfriend, who tells him to stay away from Aamir Khan's Aakash, says there's one thing fans never let her forget: She's permanently filed away in public memory as the "slap girl." And she's made peace with owning that title.

Recalling the day the scene was shot, Pillai admitted she went in nervous, unsure of how far to take it. "When we were shooting that, I asked Farhan, 'It's Saif Ali Khan, come on, how do I do this, do I do it in the theatre way' she said, describing her instinct to hold back the way stage acting sometimes trains you to. Farhan Akhtar, directing at the time, said clearly: "No, go ahead and slap him."

She took him at his word, three times, in fact, all landing on Saif.

The story doesn't end on set, though. Some time later, Pillai found herself face-to-face with Saif's mother, the legendary Sharmila Tagore, in of all places, a washroom. Rather than let the moment pass, she owned up to it on the spot: "I said, I slapped your son." Tagore's response has apparently stuck with her ever since: "I hope it was a hard one."

But Pillai's isn't the only bruised-face story from the DCH set. Aamir Khan has his own tale of physical commitment to the craft, this one courtesy of co-star Akshaye Khanna during the film's emotional friendship-fracturing confrontation. By Aamir's count, Akshaye slapped him a staggering 17 times to get the scene right.

Farhan, had given Akshaye a very specific piece of direction going in: Catch Aamir off guard. "Do it while he's talking, so we get the element of surprise," he told him. Whatever the exact math on takes, the results were unmistakable, by the time they called it, Aamir's face had swollen up and gone visibly red.