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It took a spirited 20-year old Shruti Haasan to get a 50-plus Mithun Chakraborty on top of a hurling train in Thailand for an
intricate stunt sequence in Soham Shah's Luck.
And what's more, Sohan Shah was also asked to get on top of that train by his cast
Recalling those anxious days in Thailand, and earlier in South Africa where the earlier part of the same train-top stunt
was shot, Soham says, "Our fight director Allan Amin had taken every precaution. But still as the director I had my heart
in the mouth when I saw my entire cast from Sanjay Dutt and Imran Khan to Ravi Kissan and Shruti Haasan getting on
top of that hurling burning train. "
The trickiest thing was to get Mithun Chakbraborty in the action mode. "He hadn't done stunts for decades. But when
Shruti whom we didn't want to put on the train-top and for whom we had got a body-double, insisted on doing her own
stunt, Mithunda was right up there along with the rest of the cast. "
Sanjay Dutt too was out of action for a while.
Says Soham. "Not for a second did he hesitate in doing what I'd say are the most dangerous stunts filmed in a Hindi
film. "
Shruti who makes her debut in Luck went through death-defying stunts without batting an eyelid.
"Hers is a very unusual ‘macho' kind of debut not feminine delicate and romantic at all. She has proved herself to be
quite a chip of the block, " says Soham referring to Shruti's dad Kamal Haasan who made a career of jumping into the
fire.
Shruti has also sung the title song in Luck.
Says Soham, "The fact that Imran and Shruti have known one another from childhood certainly gave our unit that little
edge of comfort. "
"Looking back, I don't know how we managed to shoot that entire train-top srquence without any of us getting hurt. Luck
was on our side, I guess. "
Monday, July 13, 2009 13:49 IST