Irrfan Khan Was In Severe Pain While Filming Angrezi Medium, Reveals Costume Designer

Irrfan Khan was last seen on screen in Homi Adajania’s Angrezi Medium, which released just days before his death in 2020. Years later, a deeply emotional account from costume designer Smriti Chauhan has shed light on the immense pain the actor endured while shooting the film.

Speaking on the latest episode of Unfolding Talents (UT) on the Digital Commentary YouTube channel, Smriti recalled how Irrfan’s health steadily deteriorated during the shoot. According to her, the actor grew visibly weaker as filming progressed, to the extent that his physical appearance kept changing.

“He was in a lot of pain when we were shooting Angrezi Medium. He only told me one thing, ‘Smriti, I get very cold’, so he told me about this one brand in London, and he said that please get me warmers from there and I said sure. During the shoot of the film also he kept shrinking. We had to add a lot of padding to his clothes in that phase. Even though we gave him a lot of layers, we still had to add a lot of padding.”she said.

The costume designer further revealed that “In the film, we gave him a vest to wear for all the summer sequences, and even that had padding. He was ailing. His family was around him most of the time and sometimes, during the shoot, he would take a break because he was not able to cope with it… There have been days on Angrezi Medium when we couldn’t shoot because he couldn’t reach the set despite trying. He was in that much pain and I think he believed that this is what I live for and I, probably, want to just die doing this and I think he did that.”

Directed by Homi Adajania, Angrezi Medium also starred Radhika Madan, Kareena Kapoor, Deepak Dobriyal and Ranvir Shorey. The film was a sequel to the 2017 hit Hindi Medium and went on to become Irrfan’s final cinematic appearance.

Irrfan Khan’s journey as an actor began with television, followed by his screen debut in Mira Nair’s Academy Award-nominated Salaam Bombay! in 1988. His breakthrough came with Asif Kapadia’s The Warrior in 2001, after which he delivered memorable performances in films like Maqbool, Haider, Piku and The Lunchbox. Alongside his success in Hindi cinema, Irrfan earned global recognition through projects such as Life of Pi, The Amazing Spider-Man and Inferno.

In 2018, the actor publicly announced that he had been diagnosed with a neuroendocrine tumour, expressing hope that he would return “with more stories to tell.” After a long battle with the illness, Irrfan Khan passed away in 2020. He is survived by his wife Sutapa Sikdar and their two sons, Babil and Ayan.