Fifteen years on, Delhi Belly (2011) still feels like the film that got away with something. It was loud, unapologetically profane, packed with toilet humour, and proudly A-rated at a time when mainstream Indian cinema rarely went there. It wasn’t supposed to work. Instead, it became a cult favourite that audiences continue to quote, revisit and discover years after its release.
In this exclusive conversation, actor Imran Khan and director Abhinay Deo look back at how Delhi Belly almost never made it to theatres, the disastrous screening where producer Aamir Khan was asked to burn the negatives, the obscenity cases that followed its release, the painstaking process of making the film, and why they believe it’s nearly impossible to recreate today.
Edited excerpts from the conversation:
The Film Nobody Believed In
When did you first realise that Delhi Belly had become a cult classic?
IMRAN KHAN: We’re still reeling from the trauma of the initial buzz. You know the story of our rough-cut screening?
ABHINAY DEO: That is a horror story I’m going to tell my children and then theirs. When the rough cut, which was the first cut ever, was done, Aamir [Khan] [wanted us to] show it. To my surprise, he had called almost 35 people and the average age in that room was 40-50 years. There was pin drop silence throughout the screening and at the end, everybody turned around and said that it was a disaster. They just ripped it apart completely.
KHAN: Aamir’s personal security guard told him, ‘Sir, yeh picture agar aap release kar doge, toh aaj tak aapne jitna bhi naam kamaya hai, sab mitti mein mil jaayega’ [If you release this movie, all the reputation you’ve built up till now will be in the dust.] He said, ‘Negatives jala do [burn the negatives].’
DEO: But we have to give it up for Aamir Khan, who, after all the criticism from family, friends, and close associates, said that we had to release this film exactly how it had been made. He could have taken the script and tamed it down, but he chose not to.
Aamir Khan Productions was known for its family-friendly films so it was a significant departure for him to make an A-rated movie. In fact, he made a couple of hilarious promotional videos about this. Did you catch any audience reactions when it was played in theatres?
KHAN: Yeah, that was a concept we came up with two months before release. We would sneak into theatres when we knew the teaser was attached to another film to get live feedback. There was this sense of shock and surprise in audiences, because they’d never seen a film do that. They were like, ‘Are you allowed to make a film like this?’ And we were as surprised as them.
DEO: It was such a different film that we decided to do the promotions just as differently. It’s like if you put a red button in the middle of a room and write ‘don’t press’, everyone presses it. That was [our strategy].
One particular promo [video] had Aamir saying that if anyone has a problem with bad language or vulgarity, please don’t watch this film. That was our red button.
Against All Odds
Back in 2011, the other big box office hits were Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara, Rockstar, Singham. Then Delhi Belly came along with a smaller budget and an unconventional narrative and earned almost ₹90 crores at the box-office. Did you expect it to be a commercial success?
KHAN: No, we were not expecting it to be released. While filming, we would all keep having these conversations: How will they let us release this? How will it clear censors?
DEO: Censors were a different story altogether. This was the same censor [board] that was passing films that were clean; we thought they would say ‘ban this shit!’ And yet, we kept making the film the way we wanted to.
KHAN: We did, in fact, have cases registered against us in the weeks immediately after, [for] obscenity, vulgarity, corrupting the youth.
DEO: Aamir and I got out of the case in 2020. Nine years after the film was released.
But usually when a film does well, similar films follow. Is there a reason why we don’t see films like Delhi Belly anymore?
DEO: Yes, it’s true. I have a feeling that people take Delhi Belly a little too easily. ’Woh toh gaali ke wajah se chal gaya ya kyuki Aamir aya gaane mein [It worked because of the abusive language or because Aamir featured in a song]. It took Akshat Verma nine years to write this film. 11 drafts. We took almost a year and a half to edit it. I did a director’s cut and Aamir sat on it. We didn’t shoot one single extra shot, just re-edited and everything fell into place.
KHAN: There was one patchwork shot. During the climactic shootout, there’s a single insert of Nitin [Kunaal Roy Kapur] in the bathroom when the bullets go through.
DEO: Because Shashank Tere, our production designer, had not made the bathroom (Laughs). But it’s not easy to write a film like Delhi Belly. It’s also not easy to make it and not easy to act in it. Indians make slapstick comedy very easily and very successfully, but to make a film that’s subtle and layered takes time.
KHAN: And it’s not just the craft. There’s a lot of individual personality in Delhi Belly, which is where the humour comes from.
I don’t think anyone, but Akshat could have written this, or anyone, but Abhinay have rendered it. I had a feeling when I was testing for the film, as I was reading the parts where I was like, I’m the correct actor for this. All the others are wrong.
The Scenes That Live On
Speaking of, Imran, what made you take a leap of faith in a film like this in the first three years of your career?
KHAN: This was no leap of faith. For context, we were in pre-production on Jaane Tu... Ya Jaane Na (2008) when Delhi Belly was picked up as a script. So, I did my first screen test for Delhi Belly while we were in Jaane Tu prep. And just reading two lines of dialogue without having read the script, I knew I wanted to be in this film. I had to be in this film.
Is there a particular scene or line that lives in your head? Mine is ‘Sir, laundry”.
KHAN: I wasn’t on set for that! But weirdly, the line that I keep dropping is one from when the three boys are sitting around the carrom table.
DEO: My favourite part of the film is what we managed to get between these three characters. They felt like they were the best buddies. I remembered my college days, and my best friends and I think that’s what success is.
Abhinay, did you have any actors in mind while casting?
DEO: Actually, no. There was no precedent for this film. When I read the script, I was in splits. But I called Aamir because I was worried that he’s given me an English script. Many writers write it in English and then it’s translated into Hindi, but [Aamir] said he hadn’t thought about that, but it was funny so let’s do it this way. That means that every actor needs to be extremely comfortable in English.
When Indians are speaking, it’s in perfectly fine, colloquial English. But the minute we come in front of the screen or the camera, the language becomes very staccato. Aamir also wanted to play Kunaal’s role in the film, and he was telling me this while working out for Ghajini (2008).
I was like, how is this man even thinking about being Nitin, a shabby, fat, sloppy guy with a beard? But when we started casting, Kunaal came in with his brother [Aditya Roy Kapur]. Aditya was being tested for Imran’s role, and I always believed that we should play the scene between people.
The third person was not there, for Nitin’s role, so we said, ’Kunaal, do you mind?’ He’d come because they were supposed to go for some family dinner after. He did the scene, and everybody went home. But when Aamir and I were watching the test, and we were supposed to be looking at Aditya, we were looking at Kunaal. That’s how he got cast.
KHAN: I tested six different times, from 2006 to 2008, with different people as well. We tried various combinations. That first day that the three of us tested together, Vir [Das], Kunaal and I, we had never met each other before. And I think it may have been that carrom board scene, in fact. You could feel the electricity and chemistry in the room. All three of us walked out of that audition saying, ‘I don’t know if I got the part, but those two guys definitely did’.
Making the Mayhem
The most memorable part of the movie, besides the jokes, were the songs. Which were your favourite tracks to record?
KHAN: We shot the movie without songs. The songs were recorded much later, and I only heard them a few months before release.
DEO: I had an idea of what I wanted. Like I needed a song for a chase. It had to be peppy, memorable and desi to some level. Ram Sampath tried many things. Even for the opening title, I had done a song which got rejected by the client for an ad film, which was done in [K.L.] Saigal’s voice. So, that was called “Saigal Blues”.
Imran, did people recognise you on the roads when you were doing these chase sequences for “Bhaag D.K. Bose, Aandhi Aayi”?
KHAN: No, after a couple of days, people heard that Aamir Khan’s someone is shooting here.
DEO: But you were a star. Jaane Tu was out. When [fans] came to know that Imran was in the van, there were 200 girls all the time looking out for when he would step out. And then who did? One burqa-clad person.
Speaking of chase sequences, Abhinay, you apparently turned action director for a couple of scenes.
DEO: One day we were shooting the three action sequences. One was where Vir’s tie is pulled while Imran is driving the car and puts the gun out. Half day through that shoot, my action director, I swear to God, had Delhi belly. He ate some nonsense food in New Delhi and he was dehydrated, so he had to go back to Mumbai. Now we had half a day more of a very difficult scene where Vir could die. And the next two days was a chase under a flyover, with cars and guns. The entire thing was too expensive to delay, so I just did it. I never got the credit though!
KHAN: I did all my stunts.
DEO: Yeah, he jumped one 10-foot wall in the scene after the ceiling collapsed.
Why It Lives On Forever
Was there ever a joke that just didn’t land?
KHAN: There are layers and layers of jokes throughout the film. And there’s Akshat’s favourite gag: After the ceiling collapses, the three boys are sitting covered in cement and Nitin is interrogating Arup. ‘What happened to your hair?’ He says, ‘they shaved it’. And Nitin has a line where he goes, ‘What is this? Mill on the fucking Floss?’ The female protagonist in the book shaves her head and that’s the gag. It didn’t land.
DEO: But it landed when the film was released in London. Because nobody puts a reference like that.
Did you improvise any of it or was it all in the script?
DEO: In the script.
KHAN: That’s what a good script is. You have to follow when a script is that good. If you try to change it, you make it less.
If you had to make another film like Delhi Belly or a sequel in 2026, do you think it would be released theatrically or would it come on OTT?
KHAN: Comedy really tends to work better in a group setting.
DEO: It’s better if it is released in theatres. But who knows? At that time also, we thought it would never be released. But can it be released on OTT? 100 per cent.
Is Delhi Belly 2 on the charts?
DEO: I’m ready. As a matter of fact, we have addressed it with Aamir [Khan] and he said, ‘When Akshat [Verma] writes it, we’ll make it.’
But maybe a similar film? That can be attempted. Though you are really trying to fit into very large shoes.