Actors Sunny Deol and Shah Rukh Khan had a major creative difference, during the shoot of their 1993 film Darr. It led to the actor duo not speaking to each other for 16 years, only to reconcile during a public reunion at Sunny’s Gadar 2 success bash in 2023. Now, in a recent interview, the actor recalled his angry moment on the sets of Darr. He also called SRK his colleague, when asked whether they were friends.

During a conversation with Shubhankar Mishra, Sunny revisited ripping his own jeans due to anger after a disagreement while filming Darr. He shared that certain actors in Bollywood are ‘insecure’, and said, “I didn’t get mad. I ripped my jeans, because I was furious at myself. At a younger age, things happen between two people. I have never been that kind of a man. I am not an insecure person. I’m never insecure, be it on the set of anywhere else. But because of insecurity, many actors end up doing things that they don’t need to do. Because we can only be the character we are.”

The actor further added, “We cannot be anything beyond that. But somehow, quite a lot of actors feel very insecure. Uski vajah se fir vibes galat hojaati hain, cheezein galat ho jaati hain, jiski hone ki koi zaroorat nahi hai. But then, that’s the reality of our film industry (Vibes go wrong, things go wrong, and that’s not needed).”

The interviewer then asked Sunny Deol if Shah Rukh is his friend. He replied, “Uss waqt bhi koi dushman toh nahi the (we were not enemies at that time either). We are all colleagues. In the film industry, we all are more of colleagues, rather than a friend. I can call them up anytime we want, but I’ve never done that. Whatever friends I have, are mostly from school or college. Friendship is where you are naked. And that happens only in childhood. It cannot happen later.”

What happened on Darr set

On the sets of their thriller-romantic drama Darr, Sunny Deol, who played the protagonist Sunil, had a disagreement with director Yash Chopra. The actor had a different perspective towards a scene where the antagonist Rahul (Shah Rukh Khan) stabs him face-to-face. He said that it wasn’t logical for an elite commando to be taken in so easily by the antagonist. Sunny got so angry during the argument that he jammed his hands into his pockets and ripped his own jeans. He was also dejected about how Shah Rukh’s stalker character was treated sympathetically in the film.

During an interview with Filmfare in 2001, Sunny said, “If I were to start my career again, I would avoid a mistake called ‘Darr’. The making of the film was the worst experience of my life. I was sick of the manipulations and lies. One day in Switzerland, I was so angry that when I stuffed my hands into the pockets, I ripped the jeans I was wearing.”

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He even swore to never work with Yash Chopra again. “I’ll never work with Yash Chopra again. He isn’t a man of his words. I don’t have good memories about him, he betrayed my faith in him,” he added.

Sunny Deol-Shah Rukh Khan end rift

After many years, both Sunny and SRK ended their feud and when Shah Rukh called Sunny and congratulated him on the success of his hit film Gadar 2 in August 2023. They even hugged it out publicly, during the movie’s success party. During an interview with Zoom, Sunny talked about making things right with SRK, and said, “Shah Rukh Khan had seen the film. Before that, he had called me and wished me well. He was so happy, and he told me ‘I’m so happy, you genuinely deserve it’ and I said thank you. Then I spoke to his wife (Gauri Khan) and his son (Aryan Khan). And he said tonight we are going to be watching this film. And after that, he had seen it, and I think that is when he tweeted.”