After the film, Deepti Naval went to the media and bashed Suresh Oberoi endlessly. Her reasons were undisclosed. One version was that Suresh Oberoi was upset that Deepti would not pose with him for any film stills and told the director to only publicize Pradeep Verma and Deepti Naval in the films publicity. Deepti denied the story and stated it was the director who wanted to concentrate on the romantic couple. Deepti would continue to refuse films with Suresh until Kanoon Kya Karega.
Kanwaljeet and Benjamin Gilani were offered the film but they refused.
Padmini Kapila was offered the film but turned it down.
Katy Mirza was signed but ditched Vinod Pande at the last minute. Parvati Khan was then signed.
Vinod Pande stated "In August 1978 I was in Bombay recording the songs of my film under Raghunath Seth Ji's baton. I was also on the lookout for the main actors. I had come in contact with Farooq Shaikh who had suggested two names for the role of Kalpana. First, I met Smita Patil, who seemed a little reticent about doing the reading as perhaps she was already doing a few films. I suspect that it was for almost a total absence of my credentials, being a greenhorn myself. The following day, Deepti Naval came to meet me. My heart raced as soon as I saw her. She seemed to step out of the pages of my script. When I asked her for the reading, she agreed for it right then. She ended up reading and performing almost all key scenes one after another. But I didn't say the word even then. I was to dine at the leading film star Rajendra Kumar Ji's place and she too was going back to her pad in the suburb. I suggested that we could travel in the taxi together and perhaps she might like to say a 'Hi' to Rajendra Ji and his wife. She agreed. Actually, it was a ploy on my part to obtain their reaction about her candidacy. I also wanted to obtain another opinion from my composer, Raghunath Seth Ji, and his wife who lived down the hill in Worli. Their reaction was palpable. They whispered to me unequivocally in the other room, "Vinod Bhai, yeh hee hai... yeh hee hai." Though Rajendra Ji and his wife seemed less certain, as their mind was more about glamor, I had made up my mind. But, while I took my time in conveying it to Deepti, she wouldn't let her enthusiasm about the project diminish even a little bit. Each morning she would call me, enquiring as to what was my plan for the day for Ek Baar Phir related work. She helped me almost like an assistant in meeting various actors for other parts. For film star Mahendra's role, Kanwaljit Singh had come to meet me, but had expressed his inability because he was expecting to be launched by the duo of Salim-Javed in a big film. He suggested Suresh Oberoi. On the telephone, Suresh said that perhaps he won't fit my requirements because he doesn't look like a star at all. That intrigued me and I said, I'd like to meet him nevertheless. Next day in the afternoon we saw a couple of commercials and a short student film of his that he had done for the FTII, Pune. Both Deepti and I were hugely taken in by his cool performance. I arranged to do a reading with him the following day. It turned out to be the same experience as was with Deepti. One after the other we ended up reading almost the entire script and he performed to the 'T'. The next day I declared to him that he was on. For Vimal's role, the choice was proving to be tricky. Though Farooq Shaikh had come to meet me, he had apologized at the outset for he was on an exclusive contract with Mr. Yash Chopra for first doing his film Noori. Deepti had taken me to meet Naseeruddin Shah, who was much in the news at the time, but he seemed rather indifferent. Somewhere, I was counting on an aspirant who had come to meet me in London. I wanted to economize and was keen to take someone in London itself. But my 2nd test with him proved convincingly that he was not Vimal. By this time Deepti had come to London. She had charmed me even more by offering to bring a suitcase full of new sarees and salwar-suits, of her newly married elder sister, for her costumes in the film. She had also brought from Bombay the photographs of another FTII graduate Pradeep Verma, who to her seemed perfect. To me the pictures told a different story. He seemed a glamor-stricken swashbuckling chap, all wrong to what I had envisioned as a simple unassuming character. Deepti said in real life he was exactly that. In October/November 1978 when we were shooting the film in London, the date for the picturization of the song "Yaad unki dil se jaati nahi hai, jane yeh mujhko kya ho raha hai...!" (in Bhupinder's haunting voice) got postponed at least three times, all because I had visualized a vast span of Hyde Park covered with fog. But the fog was not showing up. We could not afford the artificial fog machine. On the planning of the fourth date, when I said that we should check the weather for the following day, Richard Green, the young South African Production Manager, lost his shirt on me and barked, "Vinod, if you cancel this time, I am not going to fix it thereafter, not unless you arrange for the money for fog machines."Later when all my colleagues had gone and I was alone in the middle of the night in my small pad, I started screaming and crying on top of my voice. I cursed God. Couldn't he favor me with a small request, to send fog for us! Early next morning I was woken by Richard Green who whispered in a cryptic voice, "Vinod, just peer out of your window." Gosh! It was unbelievable. The entire London was covered by a thick blanket of fog. Now, there was a scramble to get to Hyde Park the fastest. The technicians and actors were pulled out of their beds to rush to the location. It was a race, but we completed our filming. The fact that I could not take the last few close ups and had to settle with the master shot for the last action of Deepti Naval coming up to Pradeep Verma, became a blessing in disguise. The long master shot has that poetically lingering quality that comes rarely. All because of the outstanding actors I had and the camera was handled by the highly gifted Nadeem Khan who has a masterly hand for zoom."