Mumbai, March 27
Filmmaker Mohit Suri has shared the moment he realised 'Saiyaara' had struck a chord with people, recalling how a song turned into a hit right on the sets when even junior artistes spontaneously began singing along during the shoot.
Suri was on actress-filmmaker Pooja Bhatt's podcast, where he spoke about the unexpected viral success of the music of his romantic drama "Saiyaara" starring Ahan Panday and Aneet Padda.
Mohit said in the podcast: "Honestly, there were things that I don't want. Like for example, there was this big tree in that ground and in YRF they have this big VFX team and they kept coming and asking me, 'Sir, what do you want to do about the tree and I was like it doesn't matter'."
Suri further disclosed that several song sequences were shot on a single reused set, highlighting his preference for efficiency over extravagance.
"I don't know if you know that all the sets of the songs are one set. I reused the same set again... The crowd came for just one day; there was no crowd for all days. Now that I had the money I realised when you have a crowd of 500 people sitting, you are going to be thinking more about the crowd than the emotion."
He added: "What I did was I called 100 on one day and shot only the emotion. Once I was happy, I was like get in the crowd."
The filmmaker said this approach reminded him of his earlier days working with Vishesh Films, where limitations often pushed creators to focus on storytelling over scale.
Suri shared: "You know, I had to go back to work in the Vishesh film way, if you have to touch that with all the money, you cannot touch it."
During the conversation, Pooja pointed out a standout moment where the crowd organically begins singing along, calling it a powerful cinematic high. Suri agreed that the moment surprised him as well.
"The funniest part is that they are so cagey about their songs and music and suddenly the whole crowd is singing it...."
"That was a good feeling because I saw people singing, normally juniors are so disinterested and then you realise they are singing the song and you are like..." Suri said, adding that he even suggested stopping the track mid-shoot to let the crowd take over.
"I told Vijay ek kaam karde gaana band karde let the crowd sing... that was the best way to show that the song became a hit..."
Saiyaara was released theatrically in 2025. A major commercial success, the film emerged as the third highest-grossing Hindi film of 2025, and the highest-grossing Indian romantic film of all time.
The film's soundtrack proved to be particularly popular, with its lead single "Saiyaara" topping several Indian and global music charts, remaining in the top ten for multiple weeks after its release.
- IANS
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