Late actor Dharmendra’s last film was filmmaker Sriram Raghavan’s war drama Ikkis. Speaking at an event organised by the Screenwriters Association (SWA), Sriram revealed that Dharmendra had turned down a role for his 2012 film Agent Vinod.
Sriram Raghavan reveals why Dharmendra declined to be part of Agent Vinod.
Sriram previously worked with Dharmendra in his 2007 film, Johnny Gaddar. He revealed that while planning Agent Vinod, he had approached the veteran actor for the role of a RAW chief, which Dharmendra declined.
“After Johnny Gaddar, I told him I want to work with you again, and he said, ‘Yes, of course’. When I was doing Agent Vinod, I remember we had written a role for the head of RAW, and his counterpart was going to be Zeenat Aman; we wanted her to be in Russia. So, it was an older and a younger story,” he said as quoted by news agency PTI.
“But it was all in the writing stage. When I met him and told him about this role, he said, ‘RAW, head, yaar, tumh log wahi (you guys do that), it’ll be India, Pakistan, I don’t want to do it’. He didn’t want to get involved in that, I said, ‘I respect that’. Then, we didn’t pursue that track at all,” added Sriram.
Sriram on Dharmendra starring in Ikkis
Sriram also described the experience of directing the veteran actor in his final film, Ikkis. “Dharam ji was among the first people to whom I narrated the story. He loved it unconditionally. How do I work with him, I go to him with the scene and tell him, ‘Let’s see how we can do, what we can do’. He’s full of ideas; he has so many things to say. I remember telling him that I must have a poem of his in the film and he suggested, ‘Aisa kuch ho sakta hai (Soething like this can happen’).”
Dharmendra died on November 24, 2025. He starred in many films such as Aaya Sawan Jhoom Ke, Sholay, Chupke Chupke, Ayee Milan Ki Bela and Anupama, among several others.
About Ikkis
Released on January 1, Ikkis is a biographical drama based on the life of Second Lieutenant Arun Khetarpal, featuring Agastya Nanda as the war hero. Arun was martyred at the age of 21 during the Battle of Basantar in the 1971 Indo-Pak war. The film also stars Dharmendra, Jaideep Ahlawat and others.
The film features two timelines — one that focuses on Arun as a young recruit and the other about his elderly father, who travels to Pakistan years later to find out about the day his son fought and lost his life. The film received positive reviews praising its peace-oriented narrative, but did not draw audiences to theatres in large numbers. Ikkis, which recently landed on the streaming service Prime Video, was Sriram’s first war drama.
About Agent Vinod
The spy action film featured Saif Ali Khan, Kareena Kapoor, Ram Kapoor, Prem Chopra, Shahbaz Khan and Adil Hussain. The film received mixed reviews from critics and underperformed at the box office.
