Farhan Akhtar the son of the famous lyricist Javed Akhtar and story writer Honey Irani was born on January 9th 1974 in Mumbai. Farhan has a younger sister Zoya Akhtar. Farhan always had inclination towards being a writer just like his parents, so the young Farhan dropped out of college to follow his interest. For almost two years he simply did nothing, but just watched movies trying to closely identify the intricacies around the movie script and direction.
Farhan started assisting known Bollywood directors to learn the craft. Pankaj Parshar extended Farhan with the opportunity to assist him on his next ‘Himalyaputra’, which was Akshaye Khanna’s debut movie. Farhan also worked for ‘Script Shop’ a television software production house for three years. He also co-directed Shankar Mahadevan’s music video ‘Breathless’ with sister Zoya Akhtar.
Farhan tied the knot with Adhuna while he was still working at ‘Script Shop’. It was around the same time that he started scripting for his directorial debut ‘Dil Chatha Hai’, which was earlier titled ‘Hum Teen’. Farhan, who had auditioned Preity Zinta earlier while assisting Shekhar Kapoor, always wanted to work with the actress. Preity was the first star to be signed by Farhan for his movie. Farhan had an entirely new and innovative approach to filmmaking. Farhan was one of the first directors to give his movie stars a complete makeover for his ‘Dil Chatha Hai’ and wife Adhuna Akhtar gave these stars a new hairdo. ‘Dil Chatha Hai’ did well in the metros, but Farhan made his mark as a director. Around the same time, Farhan and wife Adhuna also became the proud parents of daughter Shakya.
Farhan and his childhood friend Ritesh Sidhwani run ‘Excel Films’ that Produced ‘Dil Chatha Hai’. Farhan was also great friends with Aditya and Uday Chopra, but their friendship turned sour after the banner did not give writing credits to his mom Honey Irani for the script of ‘DDLJ’.
Success of ‘Dil Chatha Hai’ opened new doors for Farhan and he signed Hrithik Roshan for his next ‘Lakshya’ opposite his favorite actress Preity. Lakshya was one of the first movies that Farhan had scripted, which was based on a laidback and clueless collage kid, who goes to become one of the biggest officers in the Indian army. During the making of ‘Lakshya’ Farhan conceived the idea of remaking ‘Don’ and Ritesh supported him to execute the plan.
Farhan also judged the reality dance show titled ‘Nach Baliye’ on Star One. In Farhan Akhtar’s ‘Don’, the director presented ‘Shahrukh’ as the techno-savvy ‘Don’. Farhan along with his friend Ritesh is also producing his assistant director’s movie ‘Honeymoon Travels Pvt Ltd’ and Sister Zoya Akhtar’s ‘Kismet Talkies’.
Farhan may only have been in Bollywood for a few years now, but the director has sure become one of the biggest names in the industry.
