Irrfan Khan was to Act in a Film about Pandemics, Reveals Filmmaker Anand Gandhi

One of the finest actors of Bollywood, Irrfan Khan passed away at the age of 54 after battling with the neuroendocrine tumour for two long years. He was admitted to Mumbai’s Kokilaben Dhirubhai Ambani Hospital on Tuesday, however, breathed his last on April 29, Wednesday. 

In a film career spanning almost thirty years, Irrfan delivered impeccable performances ranging from Hindi Cinema to Hollywood. Irrfan was in talks with filmmaker Anand Gandhi for a film based on pandemics titled Emergence. Gandhi reveals that he was working on a script on women scientists, fighting a contagion.

Besides Irrfan, Gandhi had also roped in Larry Brilliant as an executive producer on the film, who had worked on the teams that helped eradicate smallpox and controlled polio. Gandhi said, “Like a detective, he figures out the epicentre of a pandemic and calculates the R-naught of the contagion, which is a measure of how many people it can infect.”

Speaking to Mumbai Mirror, he said, “Irrfan and I drove to Pune once and became friends over the years... We explored the possibility of his presence in Tumbbad before the final script and schedule changed things. He’d have been in Emergence too. I wish I had created something with him.”

Unfortunately, before things could go on celluloid, Irrfan passed away and the project remains incomplete. He was last seen in the film Angrezi Medium also starring Kareena Kapoor Khan, Radhika Madan and Deepak Dobriyal in lead roles.

Some of his best work in Hindi cinema include Salaam Bombay!, Life in a... Metro, Paan Singh Tomar, The Lunchbox, Piku, Hindi Medium to name a few.

Khan had worked in several international projects such as The Warrior (2001), The Namesake (2006), The Darjeeling Limited (2007), the Academy Award-winning film Slumdog Millionaire (2008), New York, I Love You (2009), The Amazing Spider-Man (2012), Life of Pi (2012), Jurassic World (2015) and Inferno (2016).