Deepika Padukone’s Chennai Express scenes had to be reshot as she took four days to crack character, recalls Rohit Shetty: ‘Shah Rukh sir realised…’

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Shah Rukh did, of course, have final say on the script, which continued to be fine-tuned. Rohit recalled that Deepika was coming off a string of flops at the time, and needed a few days to get into the groove. He said, “It took a long time… In comedy especially, it takes a while to crack even established actors. We started shooting with Deepika, we shot for four days, and on the fourth day, she started getting a hang of the accent. Actors are usually conscious about how they are coming across, it’s only when they shed these concerns that they start performing.”

He continued, “It took four days, and on the fourth day we thought that we had it. Even Shah sir realised that we were on the right track, and we reshot the previous four days. Then she started enjoying it, and that’s when it went to a different level.”

Chennai Express was released in 2013, and emerged as a major box office hit despite mixed reviews. It became Rohit’s first film to break the Rs 400 crore barrier globally, a feat he repeated with Simmba some years later. He worked with Shah Rukh once again in Dilwale, which was marginally less successful, both critically and commercially. Rohit’s latest film, Singham Again, has so far made over Rs 350 crore globally.