Reel to Real anger: When Sunny Deol ripped his jeans on the sets of ‘Darr’

Undoubtedly, megastar Amitabh Bachchan is the first actor who had introduced us and the moviegoers with the image of an angry young man in Hindi cinema. As time passed by, the period of the 90s witnessed yet another actor whose power-packed punches and strong personality (on the big screen) went on to make him the undisputed king of action films. No points for guessing, it was actor Sunny Deol. Veteran actor Dharmendra’s elder son, Sunny has made his own mark in Bollywood with films like ‘Arjun’, ‘Ghayal’, ‘Tridev’, ‘Damini – Lightning’, ‘Border’, ‘Gadar: Ek Prem Katha’, and many more. There’s no actor who can match his dialogue delivery, which even helped Sunny in cementing his image as an action hero among the audiences. But, during the peak of his career, there came a time when the actor faced the worst experience of his life while shooting for a film. And his popular onscreen anger wasn’t restricted to only performing his scenes.

The film was late filmmaker Yash Chopra’s psychological thriller ‘Darr’ (1993). Yes! It was the same classic that later brought the then newcomer Shah Rukh Khan into the limelight. Recently, our eyes caught hold of an interview of Sunny Deol where he recalled and opened up about an incident when he let his anger get the better of him. Thanks to his anger issues the actor ended up ripping his jeans back then. Yes! you read that right. (Also Check: When Aamir Khan and Sunny Deol decided to not work with Yash Chopra)

During the actor’s conversation with host Rajat Sharma on his show ‘Aap Ki Adalat’, the latter asked him about his anger while he was shooting for ‘Darr’. To this, Sunny first smiled and replied saying, “No! sometimes there are some things that I find hard to believe and relate to (while shooting them). I sense that it might not be right, so it makes me uncomfortable, ultimately feeling discomfort within myself. And same was the case with this film. I remember it was while shooting for the scene when Shah Rukh’s character stabs me with a knife. So, I had a lot of debate that my character is that of a trained commando officer, so how can this boy hit me so easily? I mean, he can stab me if my character is looking somewhere else. But, if I can see him attacking me with a knife and I do nothing, so what I am a commando for right?”

“So, the debate was going on for this. Jisme mereko pata nahi mereko laga… because I always respect my elders (referring to director Yash Chopra) and that’s the reason I was not understanding what to do, kyunki main kuch keh nahi sakta. So, that time I got so much angry that I stuffed my hands into the jeans pockets, and I didn’t know it was so much anger that actually I ripped the jeans I was wearing. Uske baad maine dekha ke someone was running here and someone started running there and they were all scared, jabke main kisiko kuch nahi keh raha tha. I was not understanding myself at that time what was my mistake.” added the actor.

We can only wonder the level of frustration Sunny Deol would have gone through which eventually came out in such a fashion.

In fact, post the release of ‘Darr’, Sunny Deol also said in one of his interviews that he will never work with Yash Chopra again as he isn’t a man of his words. Certainly, the actor has no good memories of working with him and perhaps that’s the reason that till date, Sunny Deol has never worked again in any of the films produced under Yash Raj Films banner as well.

Check out the full interview of Sunny Deol below:

Amod Pandit

Quiet, resonant, and creative, he can be seen immersed in his own world, and puts in his heart and soul into the one passion that he has, Bollywood. His line for survival? Feel happy to be a part of it.