India, Oct. 10 -- Filmmaker Tanuja Chandra has opened up about the complexities and magic of directing late actor Irrfan in the 2017 film Qarib Qarib Singlle, calling it "beautiful" but "difficult." The 56-year-old also shared that it took an entire year of persuasion before Irrfan finally agreed to the role. At one point, she even suggested she might cast someone else. "His wife (actor Sutapa Sen) suggested making it with Farhan Akhtar and he jumped in saying, 'Farhan ke saath banaoge?'" Tanuja said on The Pooja Bhatt Show. She further reminisced about on-set moments that ranged from quirky to tender: "Working with Irrfan was beautiful. Difficult, he was not easy. He didn't like to do too many takes because he thought that the spontaneity would go away." During dubbing, too, there were challenges. "My poor sound designer would say, 'Irrfan ji, thoda loud boliye, na'. He would say, 'Kyun? Tumko sunayi nahin de raha kya?'" she recalled. However, this unique technique also had its advantages."The great thing was that because of his mumbling, he used to change the entire dialogue in dubbing and you couldn't make out the difference because his mouth is doing whatever it is doing, it's doing its own unique dance," she said Irrfan, diagnosed with neuroendocrine cancer in 2018, died in 2020 after a long illness at the age of 53. His last film was Angrezi Medium, releasing months before his death.HTC...