Today marks the 6th death anniversary of legendary actor Irrfan. The actor’s passing had left a huge void in Hindi cinema. During a recent interview, Border 2 filmmaker Anurag Singh spoke about how he desired to make a film with Irrfan Khan, and how it almost came to fruition.

In a recent interview, Anurag revealed, “When my film Punjab 1984 released, at the same time, Balaji released a lovely film Ek Villain which was a huge success in all territories except Punjab, where its business was affected because of Punjab 1984. That’s how Ekta and I got in touch. He added, “Her people reached out to me, because maybe we could have done something together. We met and discussed a few ideas. There was this mature love story, an idea I had which she loved. It was the first Hindi film I had signed. We met Irrfan sir.”

Recalling Irrfan’s reaction, Anurag said, “He loved it. His words were, ‘The story is nice and I like your honesty. I’ll do the film.’ I guess what he meant was I was not filmy.

However, due to financial reasons, the film couldn’t take off. He added, “I met Tabu ma'am as well. But it didn’t work out and kept on getting delayed. And by then I got the offer to do Kesari. I told Ekta I was going ahead. Meeting Irrfan was a lovely experience."

Anurag has since made films like Kesari (2019) and Border 2 (2026) Meanwhile, Tabu and Irrfan famously worked together in films like Maqbool (2004) and Talvar (2015).