Kedarnath director Abhishek Kapoor has opened up about his legal battle with Sara Ali Khan, who made her debut with the 2018 film. The dispute arose after Sara’s management allotted her free dates to the makers of Simmba, for which the actress was shooting simultaneously. Kedarnath was embroiled in a legal battle between Abhishek Kapoor and KriArj Entertainment, who was managing the actress at the time. In a new interview, the filmmaker has opened up about the legal battle. 

Abhishek Kapoor recalls the challenges he faced while shooting with Sara Ali Khan for Kedarnath 

The tragedy film Kedarnath starred Sushant Singh Rajput and Sara Ali Khan in the lead roles and was released in 2018, the same year as Sara and Ranveer Singh starrer Simmba. As per the director, the actress’s ‘overenthusiastic management’ booked her dates for both films. In a conversation with Siddharth Kannan, Abhishek Kapoor detailed the challenges of the legal battle he faced during the shoot of the film. 

The filmmaker said, “Movie-making is not easy. You have to take care of your film and protect it in such a way that you have to protect it even from key people who are supposed to support your film and from scenarios that can be created, unfortunately. Those days, my dates (from her) were given to somebody else by some overenthusiastic management that was running her. It was just unacceptable to us. I had to finish my film, I could not afford to let go of the dates because I had a big set standing.”

Abhishek Kapoor says the situation helped both him and Sara Ali Khan grow

In the same conversation, Abhishek Kapoor also chronicled that the film also got into trouble with some fraudulent and financial issues. Recalling the time he was fighting with Sara Ali Khan in court, he added, “I had to fight her, but at the same time on the same days we were shooting together also. To get my dates back, we had to go to court. While we are fighting in court during the day, Sara and I are shooting important scenes the same evening in a temple!” 

Looking back at the hardship, Kapoor mentioned that such a situation helped him ‘grow’ as an individual. He recalled explaining to Sara that the film is more important than their differences and that they should not jeopardise it. He concluded, “Even out of that, both of us have taken something home."