Rising India: Pathaan Director Reacts for 1st Time to Deepika Padukone's Saffron Bikini Row, Says 'We Were Not Scared'

Pathaan director Siddharth Anand has broken his silence over the boycott calls against Deepika Padukone’s “saffron” bikini in Besharam Rang song. Several politicians had opposed to Deepika’s bikini colour, calling for its “rectification”. Despite facing threats, major controversies and criticism before the film’s release, both Deepika and Shah Rukh Khan remained silent and exhibited restraint in their response to the situation.

However, Siddharth has reacted to the controversy for the first time while speaking at the News18 Rising India summit 2023. Calling the boycott calls “a white noise,” Siddharth said, “We were not scared. We knew that there was nothing objectionable in our film.”

Siddharth further spoke about how the idea of the bikini colour in question came about. “When we were in Spain, I chose that costume randomly. We never gave it a too much thought. The colour was looking nice. It was sunny, the grass was greener and the water was blue and the orange colour was looking good. We thought when the audience would watch it they would understand that our intent was not wrong.”

The filmmaker continued, “But I can’t blame the audience because they hadn’t watched the movie till then. They were going with, ‘Achcha inhone ye kiya, wo kiya…’ But it was commendable of the audience that they flocked to the theatres when the film was released. They proved the whole boycott movement wrong. And when you are calling for a boycott of a star or a movie, you are not seeing how many people’s livelihood is dependent on that particular movie especially if it works. At least three hundred people work on a film every day. And when the shoot gets over so many VFX artists work on the post production. It’s very easy to say boycott that too without reason.”

Pathaan has broken all the records at the box office. The film, also starring John Abraham, made more than Rs 1000 crores gross worldwide. The film’s Hindi collections stand at Rs 653 crores gross. Pathaan also features an extended cameo from Bollywood superstar Salman Khan.

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