British-Pakistani actor Alyy Khan, who worked with Shah Rukh Khan on the film Don 2, narrated the story of how a high-stakes car chase scene being shot in Berlin led to crores in losses. He said that Shah Rukh was behind the wheel, and he was sitting next to him, while camera equipment worth €300,000 (this roughly converts to over Rs 2.5 crore) was rigged onto the vehicle. Alyy said that Shah Rukh missed his mark by a few moments, which led to an accident on set.
In an interview with Dawn News, Alyy recalled, “It was a Sunday, and we were shooting a chase sequence in Berlin. Shah Rukh is on the left, I’m on the right, Farhan Akhtar is hiding in the back seat so that he isn’t seen in the shot. On the bonnet, there are HMI lights and two large cameras. All in all, this is equipment worth €300,000. Obviously, this has affected the car’s balance.”
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Alyy said that Shah Rukh was very confident about his driving skills, and recalled that a square kilometre had been cordoned off for the shoot in Berlin. It involved Priyanka Chopra driving up to their car, Shah Rukh delivering the iconic Don line – ‘Don ko pakadna mushkil hi nahi, naamumkin hai‘ – and driving off. He nailed the first attempt, and Alyy tipped his hat to him. “I’ve driven a lot in my day, but thankfully I’ve never had a major accident,” he said.
Watch the crash here:
They decided to attempt the shot again. Priyanka pulled over, exchanged a look with Shah Rukh, he delivered his line, and took off. But this time, a stunt car that was supposed to reverse and brake rammed into them because Shah Rukh missed the mark slightly. “As he turned left, because he was late by a couple of seconds, the other stunt rammed directly into us. Immediately, Shah Rukh looked at me and asked if I was okay. I said I was fine. Everyone gathered around, checking if everything was okay. But there was a loss of €300,000, because the camera equipment had been damaged. Gone in a flash.”
In a behind-the-scenes video in which the crash was featured prominently, Shah Rukh admitted that it wasn’t even a difficult maneuver. “Maybe I was overconfident, but I just went wrong, and bam!” the actor said. “It was very embarrassing, one of the most embarrassing time I’ve had on a film shoot.”
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In an earlier interview, Alyy had spoken about being unimpressed by Shah Rukh’s performance in the film, to the point that he complained about it to Farhan. He said on the Nadir Ali podcast, “I was like, ‘Farhan, bata isko, yeh toh k-k-k-Kiran kar raha hai’. Kaunse school mein aagaye hain hum bhai? Ya toh hum uss 90s ke school mein khelein, ya toh aaj ke modern zamane mein (I said, ‘Tell him, man, what is he doing? If we want to do this 90s-style overacting, we can do it’). But I was giving a more grounded performance; we weren’t on the same page. I was laughing during the rehearsal, but if you do it on set, then that’s what’ll be in the film. So, I needed to bring my performance to his level…”
Don 2 was a smash hit. The franchise will be rebooted with Ranveer Singh in the central role.
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