Johnny Lever & Aftab Shivdasani Movies Together List — 3 Films

The shape of the work

The 2000s belonged to Aao Wish Karein; the 2010s to Players. Johnny Lever acted in every film; Aftab Shivdasani acted in all of them. Strictly Hindi cinema — they never crossed industries together.

Partnership facts

• In Players (2012), they had no direct scenes together. Johnny Lever played a small comic role, while Aftab was part of the main heist team. Their only overlap was in a group shot during the climax. The film’s director, Abbas-Mustan, later admitted they wasted the pairing by not writing a single scene between them.
• Aao Wish Karein (2009) was the first time they shared screen space. The film was a fantasy comedy where Aftab played a genie. Johnny Lever played a comic sidekick. The director, Glenn Barretto, paired them because he wanted a straight man (Aftab) and a chaos agent (Johnny) bouncing off each other.
• In Bin Bulaye Baraati (2011), Johnny Lever’s character was a bumbling thief. Aftab Shivdasani played a conman. Their scenes together worked because Johnny would throw in random improvised lines, and Aftab would react with deadpan silence — letting the joke land without overplaying it.
• Aftab Shivdasani has said in interviews that Johnny Lever was the only co-star who made him break character and laugh during takes. On the set of Aao Wish Karein, Johnny would deliberately mess up his lines to crack Aftab up. The director had to do multiple retakes because of this.
• Aftab Shivdasani once said about Johnny Lever: 'He doesn't act. He just becomes the character. I learned more about comic timing from watching him than from any acting class.' He said this in a 2012 interview with Filmfare while promoting Players.