Sanjay Mishra & Zakir Hussain Movies Together List — 6 Films

The shape of the work

The 2010s account for 67% of everything they made together. The 2010s belonged to Saare Jahaan Se Mehnga; the 2020s to Bhool Chuk Maaf. Sanjay Mishra acted in every film; Zakir Hussain acted in all of them. Strictly Hindi cinema — they never crossed industries together.

Partnership facts

• Zakir Hussain was a theatre actor with almost no film credits when Sanjay Mishra personally recommended him to director Rajshree Ojha for 'Saare Jahaan Se Mehnga' (2013). Mishra had seen him in a Delhi play and told the team, 'This guy is the find of the decade.' That film became their first together.
• On the set of 'Phata Poster Nikla Hero' (2013), Sanjay Mishra would deliberately flub his lines in the first take to make Zakir Hussain laugh. Hussain then started doing the same back. Director Rajkumar Santoshi had to call a five-minute break because both kept breaking character. That unscripted giggle-fight became their signature on set.
• The only film in their collaboration that was a commercial hit — 'P se Pyaar F se Farraar' (2019) — directly led to Zakir Hussain being cast in the Amazon Prime series 'Panchayat'. The show's creator, Deepak Kumar Mishra, saw Hussain's comic timing opposite Mishra in that film and wrote the role of 'Prahlad' specifically for him.
• After 'Choron Ki Baraat' (2015) flopped, Sanjay Mishra called Zakir Hussain and said, 'We need to do a film where we don't have to carry a dead script.' They then spent two years meeting writers together, trying to develop a project. Nothing came of it, but Hussain later said that those meetings taught him how to read a screenplay.
• Zakir Hussain said in a 2019 interview: 'Sanjay bhai doesn't act with you — he acts for you. In 'P se Pyaar F se Farraar', there's a scene where I'm supposed to cry. He just looked at me from across the room and started humming a folk tune. I didn't need glycerin. That's the kind of actor he is.'