Sham Kaushal is a veteran action director who has been associated with the Indian film industry for decades. In his extensive career, Vicky Kaushal’s father has worked with several B-town biggies one of them being Shah Rukh Khan. During an interview, he recalled how King Khan calmed him down when he got anxious while shooting the fire scene in Farah Khan’s Om Shanti Om.
While talking to Friday Talkies, Sham Kaushal went down memory lane and recalled working on the set of his 2007 hit film, Om Shanti Om. While he has directed several action-packed scenes in his career, the fire scene in the movie almost gave Vicky Kaushal’s dad a heart attack.
Sharing about the most challenging sequences that he shot in his lifetime, the senior stunt director stated that back in the day, VFX technology was not very advanced. Hence, during the OSO shoot, they lit up real fire on set, with three cameras and 60 team members working inside.
Sham Kaushal stated that they were very vigilant about the timing of the shoot, the lighting, and extinguishing the fire as a slight delay would have proved detrimental to them. He was quick to state that it was those 4-5 days of shooting with fire that were incredibly difficult for him.
As he spoke about the event, the senior artist confessed that after the wrap, he went to a corner and cried. “These are the moments that kill you and you feel like you’re going to suffer a heart attack. I end up breaking down at times,” Kaushal expressed.
This is when the lead actor of the film, Shah Rukh Khan came to his rescue. Watching Sham anxious and worried, the King of Romance came to him and said, “Paaji tension na le, main aisa nikal jaunga (Paaji, don’t be stressed. I will come out like this).”
In the same interview, Kaushal stated that in his field, there is nothing that he could call ‘easy’. Even today, he goes to the set with a sense of fear, hoping that everything goes smoothly. For the unknown, Om Shanti Om is Deepika Padukone’s debut Hindi movie.