Kavita Awaasthi (HINDUSTAN TIMES; November 6, 2019)

“People are shocked when I tell them that I haven’t seen the entire film yet. I have seen bits and pieces over the years, including my scenes that I dubbed for,” says Raveena Tandon, while talking about the cult comedy, Andaz Apna Apna (AAA; 1994). The film that stars Aamir Khan, Salman Khan, Karisma Kapoor and Raveena, was directed by Rajkumar Santoshi and completed 25 years of release yesterday. “I plan to sit and watch the whole film with my kids one day. In those days, we were busy juggling multiple films and the only time I could watch my own work was during dubbing. I would miss screenings of my films as I would be shooting somewhere and think that I would watch it later, but then life would happen, and the later never came,” says Raveena.

She is proud to be part of the film which saw “underwhelming success” when it released. She reveals, “People love the film today, and can’t get enough of it but it deserved this success and love when it released as well. It was a film ahead of its times, including some of the humour, that people appreciated much later. Back then, when it released, it was not a huge success. During the ’90s, slapstick comedies with double meaning dialogues worked at the box office, not a straight, clean comedy like AAA.”

Ensemble films were quite common in the ’90s and Raveena shares that “it was a lot of fun” working with so many actors on set. But there were problems, too. “It was fun but while we were shooting, none of us were speaking to each other. Sabke jhagade chal rahe they. Aamir and Salman weren’t talking to each other, Karisma and I weren’t talking, and neither were Salman and Raj ji. I don’t know how that film got made. It shows that we are damn good actors (laughs). The boys tried to bring me and Karisma together. In fact, in the climax, there’s a scene where Karisma and I, are tied to a pillar. Raj ji said, ‘We won’t untie you, unless you talk to one another’. It was all so funny. I remember, while shooting scenes, we would all genuinely laugh a lot as the dialogues were so hilarious. Hamne maze bhi kiye aur jhagde bhi kiye.”

Raveena is glad that whenever the cast gets together, especially Aamir and Salman, the bond is the same. “They are warm and loving people. In fact, I have a better friendship with Salman than Aamir today,” she says.