- Sunny Deol revisited the heated climax dispute from the 1993 film Darr on a podcast
- Sunny said he did not speak to Shah Rukh Khan for 16 years after the film's release
- He described Bollywood stars as colleagues rather than close personal friends or real friends
More than three decades after Darr turned Shah Rukh Khan into Bollywood's most memorable stalker, Sunny Deol has revisited the confrontation that ended with him tearing apart his own jeans and reportedly remaining silent with his co-star for 16 years.
Speaking on Shubhankar Mishra's podcast, Sunny said the controversy was never driven by professional insecurity. However, he acknowledged that insecurity among actors can create friction and turn relationships sour.
"I am not an insecure person," Sunny said, adding that actors sometimes end up doing things they do not need to because of their own insecurities. "Vibes galat ho jaati hain, cheezein galat ho jaati hain," he remarked.
The conversation inevitably returned to Darr, Yash Chopra's 1993 romantic thriller starring Sunny as naval commando Sunil, Juhi Chawla as his wife Kiran and Shah Rukh as Rahul, the obsessive stalker pursuing her.
Sunny was already an established star when the film was made, while Shah Rukh was only eight films old. Yet it was Rahul, with his stammered "K-K-K-Kiran" and dangerous obsession, who walked away with much of the attention.
Sunny's biggest disagreement, however, concerned the climax. He objected to a sequence in which Rahul manages to stab Sunil despite confronting him face-to-face. His argument was simple: Sunil was an elite naval commando and should not have been so easily overpowered by an untrained civilian while fully alert.
Sunny believed the attack could have worked if Sunil had been distracted or stabbed from behind. Allowing Rahul to overpower him directly, he felt, damaged the credibility of his character merely to make the antagonist appear more formidable.
His argument with Yash Chopra became so heated that Sunny slipped his hands into his pockets while attempting to control his anger. Without realising his own strength, he ripped through the jeans.
"Bhadka nahi tha, jeans phaad di thi khud," he recalled with a laugh, describing how furious he had become in 1993.
Sunny had previously addressed reports that he did not speak to Shah Rukh for 16 years after the film. "It's not that I didn't talk, but I just cut myself off, and I anyway don't socialise much. So we never met, toh baat karne ki baat hi nahi hai," he had told NDTV.
He now says the past has been left behind. Sunny explained that relationships between major stars are usually professional rather than deeply personal.
"Shah Rukh, Salman, Aamir, Ajay, Akshay...we are all more colleagues rather than close friends," he said.
For Sunny, real friendship is something far more intimate: "Dosti hoti hai jahan aap nange ho." Everything else, particularly in Bollywood, is often just colleagues sharing a screen.