Emerging actor Sooraj Pancholi says that the biggest pressure for him and his Hero co-star Athiya Shetty was not letting mentor Salman Khan down.
“Salman sir never put any pressure on us. He never instructed us to work in a specific manner, or to take inspiration from other guys. Obviously there is a pressure because we’ve got such a big film and he is backing us. We can’t let him down and that’s a pressure,” he said at a media interaction on Tuesday as part of the film’s promotion.
Though Pancholi and Shetty are the children of Khan’s close friends, Aditya Pancholi and Sunil Shetty respectively, the fathers didn’t have a say in their launch. It was Khan spotting the potential in them that got them their roles.
Pancholi said: “I was working with Kabir Khan on Ek Tha Tiger where I met Salman sir. And after shooting for 6-7 months in Turkey, the film was about to get completed. He came in my room... on the night of my birthday and pulled me into his room and gave me a birthday gift, which was Hero.”
Explaining how she got the role, Shetty said: “I used to go to the gym in Bandra where I came across Salman sir’s sister. And she told him about me and anyway, they were looking for an actress opposite Sooraj. He spoke to papa [actor Sunil Shetty] and the next thing I know I’m on the sets of Hero.”
Hero, a remake of the 1983 film, is being produced by Khan and Subhash Ghai and is directed by Nikhil Advani.
