Animal Fame Bobby Deol Recalls Facing A Real Life Wild Animal In The Siberian Tiger Rescuing From A Near-Death Experience, Says “I Had To Stop Him With My Hand”
During a recent chat, Bobby Deol got candid about shooting with a Siberian Tiger for Barsaat in Italy and the dangers he faced during it. Read on.
Bobby Deol Recalls Barsaat Shoot & Having Meat Near His Neck For The Siberian Tiger To Attack: “His Paws Were So Heavy That When…” (Photo Credit: YouTube)
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Bobby Deol has been entertaining his fans with in-screen performances ever since he debuted in Bollywood in 1995 in the blockbuster romance Barsaat. Since then, the actor – who won the Filmfare Award for Best Male Debut, has starred in several top-grossing flicks like Gupt, Soldier, Badal, Bichoo, Humraaz, Race 3, and more.
But do you remember the ‘Aashram’ actor fighting a Siberian tiger in the Rajkumar Santoshi film co-starring then-debutant actress Twinkle Khanna? In a recent chat, Deol opened up about filming the scene with a real tiger and how dangerous it actually was.
During a recent chat with Mashable India, Bobby Deol got candid about filming Barsaat and shooting with a real Siberian tiger. While going down memory lane, the ‘Animal’ actor revealed the tiger’s handlers would place a piece of meat near his neck to get the wild animal – that they tamed, to lunge at him with its ferocious teeth inches away from causing damage.
Recalling shooting the Barsaat sequence with the Siberian tiger In Italy, Bobby Deol said, “We shot it in Italy. We learnt there was someone who had trained Siberian tigers. He had a small zoo of his own. I did the fight with the tiger there.” But how dangerous was it?
Revealing the handlers clipped the tiger’s toenails, the actor stated that the animal’s mouth was still wide open and, hence, shooting the sequence was still quite dangerous to film. He said, “I had to stop him with my hand. His paws were so heavy that when he would get tired, he would place his paws on me and I would get pushed down.” He added, “His mouth was right there but I wasn’t thinking about it then. I was just working to give the shot.”
Besides Bobby Deol and Twinkle Khanna, Barsaat starred Raj Babbar, Mukesh Khanna, Harish Patel, Danny Denzongpa, and many more. The Rajkumar Santoshi directed and co-written film – which was released in September 1995, earned both Deol and Khanna Best Debut Actor awards and was declared a ‘Super Hit’ grosser by Box Office India as it was the 5th highest-grossing movie of the year.
