Shah Rukh Never Takes Away His Co-Actors' Scenes: Pathaan Writer Abbas Tyrewala

Abbas Tyrewala spoke about writing the much talked about Salman Khan and Shah Rukh Khan scene in 'Pathaan.'

Shah Rukh Khan's Pathaan has taken the global box office by storm. The action-thriller has not only left the audience in awe but has gone on to collect a whopping Rs 667 crore worldwide in just 8 days. The film which also stars Deepika Padukone and John Abraham has been breaking one record after another since its release.

The Quint caught up with Pathaan's dialogue writer Abbas Tyrewala to speak about the massive success of the movie and what he kept in mind while writing Shah Rukh Khan's dialogues.

"You can't start with the premise of who is playing the part. You start with the premise of what the filmmaker is trying to do. Pathaan and Shah Rukh being interchangeable was Siddharth's initial vision. However, if you are writing for films like Swades and Chak De! India, playing to Shah Rukh's stereotypical persona would be detrimental."

Abbas Tyrewala, Dialogue writer

When asked whether it was a challenge scripting the scene where Shah Rukh and Salman Khan share screen space Abbas said, "Inevitably and inescapably, we all had to ensure that both Shah Rukh and Salman got equal attention. If there's a scene where the least amount of improvisation was expected of me it was the train scene. That's a world that Siddharth Anand and Aditya Chopra know. Shah Rukh and Salman are friends of theirs. Also, the balancing had to be there. It's Shah Rukh's film, and Tiger (Salman) can't walk away with it. Also, it's unfair if Tiger doesn't have his fair share of lines. But it all came together very smoothly".

Speaking about one of Shah Rukh's best qualities Abbas said, "Shah Rukh has one quality, that of security. He is sure that no one can take a scene away from him. The one time I saw this quality was when I was on the sets of Ashoka. If there's a completely unheard-of junior actor who is sharing a scene with Shah Rukh and the sequence is meant for that actor, SRK will never try to walk away with the scene."

The film hit theatres on 25 January.