Kya tareeka hua?: Drishyam 3 director on Akshaye Khanna's exit 7 days before shoot

There are few things more terrifying for a filmmaker than a film already being ready to roll, only for a key actor to walk away days before the camera is supposed to turn. For director Abhishek Pathak, that nightmare arrived just seven days before he was to shoot a crucial sequence between Ajay Devgn and Akshaye Khanna for Drishyam: The Conclusion.

The set was ready. Dates had been locked. Money had already been spent. The crew had been assembled. And then, suddenly, the actor who was supposed to reprise his role from Drishyam 2 was no longer part of the film.

Pathak has now opened up about that frantic week, admitting that the team was left deeply unhappy by the way Khanna's exit unfolded. There was no time for outrage, however. There was a film to shoot.

"I won't say panic, but we were not happy with the whole idea. I thought, 'Ye kya tareeka hua (What is this)?'" Pathak told Hindustan Times.

That one week became a race against the clock. The obvious option would have been to postpone the shoot, rewrite the schedule and find another actor at leisure. But filmmaking, especially on the scale of Drishyam, does not work that neatly. The set had already been erected. Dates had been taken from several actors. Hundreds of technicians and daily-wage workers were depending on those dates. Production designers, cinematographers, lighting assistants and spot boys had all blocked the period for the film.

And postponing one actor's dates would have meant disrupting everyone else's. So Pathak made a decision that, by his own account, left him with very little room to breathe: carry on.

"The tough part was the call to continue, to just tell the team: 'Hold on, don't cancel anything. We will do it'. Bol to diya par ab karna bhi padega. Likhna bhi tha (I said it, but now I had to do it and rewrite things)," he recalled.

He gave himself two or three days to work out whether the seemingly impossible could actually be done. He was not merely looking for another actor. The character itself had to be reworked.

That is how Jaideep Ahlawat entered Drishyam: The Conclusion with barely enough time to understand the world he was stepping into, let alone prepare for a role in one of Bollywood's most closely watched franchises.

Ahlawat had a particularly difficult task. He was not walking into a fresh film where he could spend weeks developing a character. He was stepping into a part that audiences already associated with Khanna.

Pathak, therefore, changed the character rather than simply asking Ahlawat to imitate what had been planned for Khanna. When Pathak called him, Ahlawat's first question was telling, "Casting change or character change?"

"I told him I was changing the character," Pathak recalled.

The rest happened at remarkable speed. Ahlawat read the revised material, had a look test in Mumbai and did two readings with Pathak. He arrived just one or two days before his shoot.

"All that happened within 5-6 days," Pathak said. For the filmmaker, it was a gamble. For Ahlawat, it was a leap into a journey he had not been part of until that moment.

"He had a few days. We did two readings before I left for my shoot, and then he came 1-2 days before his shoot was supposed to start. He asked a few questions and read the script. He had a look test in Mumbai. We both leaned on each other because it was all so last-minute," he said in the same interview.

Yet Pathak says Ahlawat rose to the occasion. "For him, it was a challenge entering a journey he wasn’t a part of earlier. For him to come and become a part of the film was challenging, but he did it beautifully," he said

The irony is that the pressure may have ended up helping shape the new character. Pathak even reshot Ahlawat's introductory scene later because he felt the first version could be better - another decision he was able to make because Ahlawat gave him the space to rethink it.The shoot could not wait

What seems to have stayed with Pathak is not merely that Khanna left, but the timing of it. By the time the actor exited, Drishyam 3 was not some project still taking shape on paper. The machinery of production was already moving.

"Set lag chuka tha (The set had been erected). We couldn't cancel," Pathak said. And there was another reality he could not ignore: the people whose livelihoods were tied to the production. "There are so many people depending upon us to earn money. They have not taken any other jobs at this time," he recalled.

That meant the decision to continue was bigger than saving a shooting schedule. It was about not allowing one actor's exit to pull an entire production apart.

Everyone from the DOP and production designers to lighting assistants and spot boys had locked their dates. The principal cast had other films lined up. If Drishyam moved its schedule, those dates might simply disappear.

"These are all big actors. I can't suddenly tell them to give me dates later. They have other big films lined up, and those directors won't leave those dates for me. So, we took that call," Pathak explained.

There is a sense of frustration in the way he recounts those days. He had seven days to solve a problem that, under normal circumstances, would have demanded weeks or months. The film had to keep moving even as one of its pieces had suddenly been removed.What happened with Akshaye Khanna?

The circumstances around Khanna's exit have been disputed in public accounts.

In an earlier conversation with Hindustan Times, producer Kumar Mangat Pathak accused Khanna of unprofessional conduct and alleged that the actor had become difficult to work with after the success of Dhurandhar. The producer also claimed that Khanna had been formally signed, had received his signing amount and had previously agreed to the film after negotiations over his remuneration. He alleged that the actor later withdrew shortly before production. These are the producer's allegations, not independently established facts.

Kumar Mangat Pathak was particularly scathing about what he believed had changed after Dhurandhar. He alleged that Khanna believed the film's success was primarily because of him and argued that its success had multiple contributing factors. He also described the actor's alleged conduct on an earlier collaboration as "toxic" and "unprofessional."

Drishyam: The Conclusion, starring Ajay Devgn, Tabu, Shriya Saran, Rajat Kapoor, Ishita Dutta and Mrunal Jadhav, now features Jaideep Ahlawat and Prakash Raj among its new additions. The film is scheduled to release in theatres on October 2.- EndsPublished By: Vineeta KumarPublished On: Sep 22, 2026 15:31 ISTRead more | Chemistry is chemistring: Ajay-Tabu leave fans gushing at Drishyam 3 launch