Deepika Padukone enjoys performing stunts on her own. Her athletic proclivity runs in her family. She had two back-to-back double roles in Om Shanti Om and Chandni Chowk while she was quite young in her career. Deepika Padukone had the opportunity to practise martial arts in China.
She did them with zeal, and she was accompanied by Akshay Kumar. There were some situations in this 2009 film that were deemed too risky. However, she insisted on getting rid of the body double as well as the wirings that were supposed to keep the stunts safe.
Chandni Chowk To China director Nikhil Advani recalls, “There were some scenes that we thought to be too dangerous. But she insisted on doing away with the body double and also the wirings. She’s very athletic, it runs in her family. Then there was Akshay Kumar to inspire her. Akshay had done so much on-screen action. It was a novel experience for Deepika. And she sailed through the action. She worked really hard to get the posture and power in the action scenes.”
But nothing she performed in Chandni Chowk To China matched to her performance in Rajinikanth’s Kochadaiyaan. Peter Hein, who choreographed Rajinikanth’s stunts in Robot, choreographed Deepika’s 10-minute stunt in Kochadaiyaan. Deepika has been hankering to show off her athletic abilities on TV ever since.
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In Siddharth Anand’s Pathan, she finally gets another chance to do her own stunts, ditching all body doubles and plunging into her own stunts. In Pathan, Shah Rukh Khan is also taking some risks.
