Bobby Deol recalls shooting with a Siberian tiger for Barsaat: ‘They had a piece of meat next to my neck so the tiger jumps’

Bobby Deol recalled how he fought a real-life Siberian tiger during the shoot of his debut film Barsaat.

New Delhi | Updated: October 31, 2023 05:35 PM IST

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Bobby Deol will next be seen in the Ranbir Kapoor film Animal. (Photo: Bobby/Instagram)

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Bobby Deol made a smashing debut with Twinkle Khanna in the 1995 film Barsaat. It was one heroic debut which had Bobby galloping on horses and fighting tigers. In a recent interview, Bobby recalled how they shot the sequence with a Siberian tiger in Italy. The actor shared that the handlers would place a piece of meat close to his neck so the tiger would jump towards it and his ferocious teeth were inches away from him.

Bobby recalled that to shoot the sequence, they traveled to Italy as they had learnt that someone had a private zoo with trained Siberian tigers. “We shot it in Italy. We learnt there was someone who had trained Siberian tigers. He had a small zoo of his own. I did the fight with the tiger there,” he shared with Mashable India.

Bobby Deol said that they had just trimmed the nails of the tiger’s paws but his mouth was not sewn shut so it was quite dangerous to shoot the sequence. “They had just trimmed his nails. They would have a piece of meat close to my neck so the tiger jumps on you and goes for the meat. I had to stop him with my hand. His paws were so heavy that when he would get tired, he would place his paws on me and I would get pushed down,” he shared.

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Bobby laughed and said that even if a dog bites someone, they would get hurt, and in this instance, he was fighting with a tiger. “His mouth was right there but I wasn’t thinking about it then. I was just working to give the shot,” the actor shared.

Bobby Deol’s debut film Barsaat was in the making for three years and in a recent conversation at the Jagram Film festival, the actor recalled how the film was first directed by Shekhar Kapur. “I started shooting for the film very early and Shekhar Kapur was the director. We shot for the film for 27 days. He then got an offer from Hollywood to make Bandit Queen. Shekhar said, ‘I will do Bandit Queen and come back to do Barsaat,’ But my father told him that he didn’t want to delay it. He told Shekhar, ‘You go do your film, I will find somebody else.’ And I think Rajkumar Santoshi was waiting to direct my film. I got lucky with him,” he shared.

Bobby will next be seen in Sandeep Reddy Vanga’s Animal.

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