Sunny Deol turned 69 on 19 October 2026, and the date has returned attention to a long-remembered chapter in Hindi cinema: the friction that followed Yash Chopra’s Darr. The 1993 thriller paired Deol with Shah Rukh Khan and Juhi Chawla, and it has carried a second story ever since—the reported distance between its two male stars. An August 2026 podcast appearance with Shubhankar Mishra offers Deol’s own framing of what happened.
The scene that sparked the story
In Darr, Deol played Sunil, a naval officer; Shah Rukh played Rahul, an obsessive lover; and Chawla played Kiran. Reports have long held that Deol objected to a sequence in which Rahul stabs Sunil. The actor’s issue was with credibility: a trained naval commando would not be overpowered so easily.
Deol says the frustration turned inward. “I didn’t get mad at anyone else. I got mad at myself, and I tore off my jeans,” he said. He added that he is not an insecure performer. But he argued that when other actors carry insecurity onto a set, it can disturb the atmosphere and make scenes go wrong.
A colleague, not an enemy
The word “enemy” has followed the two stars for decades. Deol pushed back: “We were not enemies at that time also.” He described industry peers as colleagues rather than friends, a distinction that frames the episode as a professional disagreement rather than a personal war.
He also said he would be open to sharing screen space with Shah Rukh again. His reasoning was simple: the earlier chapter belongs to a different period, and so does the present.
The Gadar 2 thaw
The relationship had already softened by the time Gadar 2 became a success in 2023. Deol has said that Shah Rukh called him before the film’s release to wish him well, told him he “genuinely deserved” the success, and later watched the film with his family before posting a congratulatory tweet. That call appears to have reset the public equation more than any single interview could.
Why the Darr story still matters
For readers who follow Hindi cinema as closely as its news, the value of this account is not gossip. It is a record of how a film can carry a second memory—the one built on set. Deol’s point about on-set insecurity also explains why some productions earn a reputation for being difficult even when the final cut is celebrated.
- Deol says the Darr anger was aimed at himself, not at Shah Rukh.
- He describes the two as colleagues rather than enemies.
- He remains open to a future collaboration with Shah Rukh Khan.
Deol’s Batwara 1947, co-starring Preity Zinta and Shabana Azmi, recently arrived in theatres. He is next set to play Lord Hanuman in Nitesh Tiwari’s Ramayana. With the new podcast on record, the Darr chapter now reads less as a feud and more as a young actor’s frustration that both stars have outgrown.
Source: Moneycontrol
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