For the first time since Pathaan’s release, director Siddharth Anand spoke about the making of Pathaan, directing Shah Rukh Khan and Salman Khan in that iconic post credit scene and designing the ‘seeti and clap’ moments in the film.
Siddharth Anand on how he designed the high points of the film, “Pathaan was the first film I designed for the seetis and the claps. My earlier films are a lot more subtle, for instance you will not remember any dialogues from a War for instance. But here everything came together to make it a front footed, commercial mass entertainer. When Shah Rukh comes out of the shadows and says ‘zinda hai’ we were clapping on set itself.”
When asked about the post-credit scene with the two Khans, the filmmaker had this to say, “That prophesy turned out true – they said ‘hume hi karna padega’ and they only did it! We knew that we wanted Salman Khan’s Tiger to come into the film so we could make the crossover. Logically if a director knew this was happening in his film he would stage it in the climax at the end of the film. But I was dead sure I didn’t want that. I knew I wanted the hero to get his own space at the end of the film and to feel he has done it himself.”
Did you know Dimple Kapadia was not initially a part of Pathaan? “That role wasn’t actually written for Dimple Kapadia – it was written for Kumud Mishra. But a night before I was going to speak to Kumud Mishra I happened to watch Tenet. Dimple was so fantastic in the film. So we changed the gender of the character because I felt she would add a sense of warmth to Shah Rukh because his equation with women is just fantastic. I’m so glad it worked out and she was able to take on the role.”
With regards to the many conspiracy theories and spin off ideas Siddharth said, “I would love to make a spin off of Katrina Kaif’s Zoya and Deepika Padukone’s Rubia – the two Paki agents should be by next film! But honestly, the next few years are going to be so exciting. There are so many possibilities we can explore. We can maybe create a younger agent and do a crossover there.”
