From Amar Upadhyay not being the first choice to Smriti Irani and her embarrassing moment with Jeetendra on flight; Apara Mehta makes intriguing revelations from Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi days

Apara Mehta has been a renowned name in the Industry, she has garnered immense love from her Kyunki days and even theatre. The actress was recently seen on a comic podcast of Comedy Factory where she got candid about her Kyunki days, her bond with Ekta Kapoor, Smriti Irani and more.

Apara Mehta shared her juggle between TV and Theatre, "While I was doing Kyunki, I didn't leave the theatre. I used to have my theatre shows while shooting for the show as well. So morning I would shoot for Kyunki, and then take the fight for Ahmedabad. I did that for months the constant to and fro for my love for acting and stage."

Earlier, we used to shoot for Kyunki in Ekta and Shobha ji's home's basement. So when there was an earthquake in Kutch, the vibrations reached Mumbai and we were shooting in the Basement. Smriti asked me whether we would get saved from this or not. And I was like don't worry, Shobha ji and Ekta will pull us out and says 'ek closeup deke jao.'

Apara shared that while they were shooting the first shot with the actor, Ekta had replaced Mihir. She said, "We had a temple scene where Mihir had to say 'maa main aagaya' and whoever that actor was his voice itself put me off. We were facing backwards so I didn't see who was the first Mihir of the show. Luckily that day Ekta had come for the shoot and she saw that this Mihir wasn't shooting and she replaced him in 30 mins. Later, there were three actors who did a mock shoot and I suggested that Amar Upadhyay was the best of all and he was cast as Mihir."

Apara shared that they were on a flight to Kolkata during Durga Puja, Shah Rukh, Raza Murad and all were there. And we saw Jeetu ji enter, Smriti and I hid ourselves behind the newspaper. As we hadn't give our dates to Ekta but Jeetu Ji saw us and he asked us whether we were going to Kolkata, and I replied, 'We'd be getting down midway.'

Amar had left the show when he was offered a film and we tried to make him understand that he shouldn't leave but then he wanted to quit owning to the leap. Then for 6 months, Tulsi was the hero and Baa and Savita were the heroines of the show. Then we asked Ekta to give one permanent Mihir. We then asked for Ronit. He is a fine actor and he was already doing Kasauti.

Smriti, Ronit and I had dupes on the set. We used to have a lot to shoot so we had dupes or body doubles who would do the master shoots. But Ronit had a habit of cutting his hair in different styles every few days. So Munna, his dupe had to keep changing his hairstyle.