Sham Kaushal, an action director with more than 40 years of experience in the film industry, has finally opened up on how tightly wound and stressful he was after filming an intense stunt in the 2007’s superhit ‘Om Shanti Om’. In an episode of ‘Sutradhar with Vineet Rai’, he revealed that he was left emotionally shaken from filming the high-risk stunt scene.
Sham, who has contributed several action-oriented sequences for films, confessed that after years of service in the industry, he is still petrified on seeing fire and water stunts while directing them. “Every morning I go to shoot scared, hoping and praying that everything goes well,” he related. “Aag aur paani pe aap control nahi kar sakte (You cannot control fire and water).”
One of the toughest stunts Sham has directed has to be the fire scene in ‘Om Shanti Om’, where Shah Rukh Khan’s character Om rescues Shantipriya from a blazing set. “We had put up a set in Film City and had to set it on fire. There was no VFX back in 2007. Seventy people from my team had to set the curtains on fire. There were three cameras. Then they had to extinguish the fire within seconds. If any of the curtains stayed on fire for more than the desired time, it could have been a disaster, as there were almost 125 people on the set.”
Despite the high stakes and immense pressure, Shah Rukh Khan remained calm during the shoot and even offered some comforting words to Sham. “Paaji tension na le, main aise nikal jaunga (Brother, don’t be tensed” (I will come out like this),” that reassured the action director ahead of the shoot, easing tension a bit.
The scene was done successfully without any casualties, but the emotional toll on Sham was explicit. He confessed that the stress of the moment went really deep into him. “These were the moments that kill you, and you feel like you’re going to suffer a heart attack. I end up breaking down at times,” Sham admitted.
Om Shanti Om, released in 2007, marked the debut of Deepika Padukone into Bollywood. It has turned out to be a huge commercial success that went on to collect more than Rs 150 crore worldwide. Despite all the chaotic moments that happened during the filming process, the film remains one of the iconic hits of that year.
