Priyamani initially suspected offer to work with Shah Rukh Khan, Rohit Shetty was ‘a prank’; later requested not to be used as just a background dancer

“The next thing I knew, I’d packed my bags and flown to Mumbai. My manager also came all the way from Hyderabad, and we finally met Rohit Shetty. He told me that he had seen a Kannada song featuring me and Puneeth Rajkumar,” she said, adding that Puneeth was such a fun person to hang out with.

“I had previously seen an ad for Chennai Express in the newspaper, stating the film starred Shah Rukh Khan and Deepika Padukone. So, I started wondering why they would cast me in such a film… Although I was very grateful and happy, I requested Rohit sir not to use me just as a background dancer in the song. In my head, I was thinking like that since the film had two of the biggest names in the industry. He immediately clarified that the song features only me and Shah Rukh Khan and that Deepika is not even in it. I agreed to it immediately,” she added.

Watch ‘1 2 3 4 Get on the Dance Floor’ song here:

Priyamani also mentioned that they shot the song “1 2 3 4 Get on the Dance Floor” over a span of five nights. Heaping praise on Shah Rukh Khan, she said, “That man is so hardworking. For a person of that stature, he needn’t do anything like that, especially because we were shooting from 6 pm to 6 am. As soon as the shoot was over, I used to rush back to my room to rest. But he would stay back and practice for some more time with the assistants. Hats off to his dedication and his love for cinema.”

She also recalled the time they were shooting for the song “Zinda Banda” from Atlee Kumar’s Jawan. “On the first day of the song’s shoot, we had reached the set before he arrived. Our and SRK’s rehearsals happened separately. Once the rehearsals were over, he came out, and we were getting ready for the shoot. Initially, I was positioned at the far-right point from him. As soon as he saw me, he asked why I was there. I told him that’s where I had been placed. He immediately asked me to come to the front. He caught me by my shoulder and hand and made me stand beside him. He told Atlee sir and Shobi master (choreographer Shobi Paulraj) that ‘this girl is my dance teacher right from Chennai Express, she will stand only beside me.’ That’s why, if you see the song, I am standing next to him in every frame. For every dance step, he would ask me to show him how I would do it,” Priyamani, who was last seen in Article 370 and is now gearing up for the release of her upcoming movie Maidaan, recalled.