Suneel's father produced several films. He himself has produced 12 films of which he has directed eight. Apart from his younger brother Dharmesh Darshan, who he introduced as a director, he played a key role in the careers of Akshay Kumar and the two Kapoor sisters, Karisma and Kareena.
Shiv Darshan says, `I went to Arya Vidya Mandir School, where I would always get into trouble due to my long hair, even though it was not this long at that time. My PT sir would kind of humiliate me and once he cut my hair in front of everybody, but I still always kept long hair as I liked the feel of it. I always knew that I wanted to be a part of the industry, but not as an actor. Our family was into distribution in a big way, so may be as a distributor. But there was this one particular incident after which I wanted to pursue acting.`
He further says, `My father was shooting for 'Talaash' with Akshay Kumar. But due to medical reasons, he could not make it to the set one day. I was in school at that time when my dad asked me if I could body double for him that day. They put makeup on my face, I wore his costume and they chopped my hair as I have always had long hair and I gave the shot. It was a very basic shot, but I really liked that two minutes of fame and decided that I wanted to become a star. I then started training.`