Pathaan director reveals the Shah Rukh Khan-Salman Khan bridge scene was axed from film, credits Uday Chopra for suggesting it as post-credits scene

One of the biggest highlights of Pathaan was the post-credits scene with Shah Rukh Khan and Salman Khan where they merge their characters with their real self. The scene had them speaking as their characters, but the audience understood that they were also talking about the state of the film industry and their star power. In a recent chat, Pathaan director Siddharth Anand revealed that the scene was actually shot as the conclusion of the train sequence but was chopped out of the film during the edit.

“The sequence you watched in post credits, that was the end of that (train) sequence,” he shared at the News 18 Rising India Summit 2023. Siddharth said that they struggled to find the tone of that scene so “we came up with the idea that make it about them in real life and we’ll find humour in that.” He continued, “But then we chopped that from the film. It ended how that sequence is ending and the film ended. When we saw the film after the final mix, Uday Chopra came up with this idea that we should put that scene at the end of the film. And we all realised, ‘Why did we not think of it? It’s mind blowing. Credit to Uday Chopra for that suggestion.”

Siddharth said that he was clear that he wanted to do the Salman sequence with humour. “I wanted it to be funny because you know that they (Shah Rukh and Salman) will destroy the goons. You are already prepared. How will they do it is what the audience wants to know. But the X factor is the humour. Shah Rukh and Salman have such great chemistry with each other. They are very good friends, they have great understanding and they are like that off-camera also so I wanted to capture that,” he said.

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He said that he wanted that “tongue in cheek” tone so they established it from the start of the scene when Salman lands with coffee and pain killers.

Siddharth also spoke about the Karan Arjun reference and said they wanted to “play to the gallery, front footed” so he made Salman say “bhaag Pathaan bhaag” in reference to Karan Arjun’s “bhaag Arjun bhaag.” “Salman was a little shy but I pushed him to do it,” he shared.

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