Shah Rukh Khan slept on bus floor during lunch breaks on Dil Se: Tigmanshu Dhulia

Actor Shah Rukh Khan is as popular for his humility as he is for his acting chops. Filmmaker Tigmanshu Dhulia recently revisited the days when he worked as a dialogue writer on the 1998 Mani Ratnam film Dil Se, featuring Shah Rukh in the lead role. He shared that Shah Rukh had no airs of being a big star and didn’t mind taking a nap on the floor of a bus in the absence of vanity vans.
“He is such a humble person. I can’t even tell you. I could see this even during Dil Se, and he was already a big star at that time,” Tigmanshu told Mashable India. He recalled that when they were shooting for Dil Se in Ladakh, there were no vanity vans, and SRK would sleep on the floor of the bus during lunch hours. Also, he wouldn’t stop anyone from getting on the bus even if he was sleeping.
“When we were shooting in Ladakh with Mani sir, you would just travel on the roads, and he would decide this is where he wanted to shoot. So during lunch, there were no vanity vans or anything. In the bus we were travelling in, the passage where people walk, Shah Rukh would take a nap there during lunch for 30 minutes. But we (crew members) had things on the bus, so we would keep going in and out. Sometimes, we would go over him to get to a jacket or something, but he never objected to anything,” Tigmanshu shared.

He added, “He never said no one can enter the bus when I am sleeping. He could have done that. He is the star of the film. If he wants to sleep for 30 minutes, he should get that time undisturbed, but that never happened.”
After Dil Se, Tigmanshu got to work with Shah Rukh on the 2018 film Zero, which was also produced by the actor’s Red Chillies Entertainment. On the set of the film, he made sure that everyone was comfortable and had lunch.
“During Zero, it was his home production, and there were many other actors there. Shah Rukh was so respectful towards everyone. He would pick chairs for everyone and ask them if they had lunch,” he recalled and added, “Yeh sanskar hain uske (These are his values). It’s his manners that make him great,” Tigmanshu reflected.
After the debacle of Zero, Shah Rukh Khan took a four-year sabbatical and returned to the big screen in 2021 with hits Pathaan and Jawan. He will be next seen in Sujoy Ghosh’s King, along with his daughter Suhana and actor Abhishek Bachchan.