Suniel Shetty revealed that he had initially rejected JP Dutta’s multistarrer, Border.
Suniel Shetty recently revealed in one of his podcasts that he had initially rejected JP Dutta’s 1997 war film, Border. Explaining the reason behind the same, he shared that he didn’t want to work with the filmmaker as he hadn’t heard good things about him.
While speaking with YouTuber Ranveer Allahbadia on his podcast, ‘The Ranveer Show’, the Hera Pheri actor shared, “I had heard a lot of stories about JP Dutta, that he gets angry and abuses his actors.”
However, the director was keen on casting Suniel as Captain Bhairon Singh in his movie. After pursuing him for two-three months, Dutta approached the actor’s mother-in-law to convince him.
The Main Hoon Na star recalled, “When he came to me with Border, I refused to sign it. He made me hear the subject. I respected him but then I said no. He couldn’t understand why I had said no to that character. That struggle went on for 2-3 months and he was hell-bent on me doing that character. He got to Bharat Shah, who lived in my mother-in-law’s building, and he then went to my mother-in-law. It was her who convinced me to do Border.”
He continued, “I told mom that he is hot-headed and he might say things. I am hot-headed too. I might use my arm for certain things. So, I don’t want to bash up with JP Dutta and beat him up on the set. She told him that and JP said, ‘I only get upset when people don’t give their 100 per cent’.”
When Ranveer asked Suniel if he and Dutta ever got into a fistfight on the sets, the actor simply answered, “It has happened a few times, not on set, but outside, when we were troubled.”
Further, during the course of the interview, Shetty said that after working with JP Dutta in Border, he realised that the director is in love with the Indian forces.
“He would have been a commercial director, he would have done 100 films, but he only did what he believed in. For me, he is my guru today, master craftsman, and phenomenal human being,” the actor shared on the show. He also revealed that everyone on the set was in “absolute tears” after filming the song ‘Sandese Aate Hai.”
Border, a fictionalised account of the Battle of Longewala from the 1971 India-Pakistan War, had an ensemble cast which included names like Suniel Shetty, Sunny Deol, Akshaye Khanna, Jackie Shroff and others.
