Tubelight: What Happens When Salman Khan And Kabir Khan Disagree?

Mumbai: Before Tubelight, actor Salman Khan and director Kabir Khan made two films together - Ek Tha Tiger (2012) and vBajrangi Bhaijaan (2015). Both the films were super-hits and Tubelight is expected to break box office records. Before Ek Tha Tiger, Salman starred in a string of commercial masala films like Bodyguard (2011), Ready (2011) and Dabangg (2010). Kabir comes from a documentary filmmaking background - he started with Kabul Express (2006). They may be as different as chalk and cheese but Salman Khan and Kabir Khan are considered one of Bollywood's most bankable director-actor pairs. But what happens when they disagree while filming a scene?

While speaking to a journalist in Mumbai, Salman Khan said, "If it's black and white then there is no discussion. If he is on another platform and I am on another platform, then there is no debate. But that does not happen. Because of the sensibilities, you say this is white, and this is off white. Sometimes I pull back, at times he does. He will tell me we have to put some logic in information scenes then I say these are facts all Indians know. For e.g. If we are going to Pakistan to leave Munni (scene from Bajrangi Bhaijaan) now I understand that we have to show the journey. If there is a scene where the actor has to take a flight to London, so I feel it should just be a 'take off and landing' shot and not the journey."

Kabir Khan told NDTV.com it doesn't take much time for him and Salman to get on to the same page, "It's a straightforward process either he convinces me, or I convince him. I feel that's a great way to go forward. It's also important that actors come with their take on the scene, it shows the involvement. If an actor doesn't come up with their inputs, I would feel that they aren't that involved in the film. Because we discuss the script at length before we start shooting it doesn't take much time to come back on the same page."

Tubelight, Kabir and Salman's third film, is set against the 1962 war with China. Salman's brother Sohail Khan plays the actor's screen sibling, a soldier who goes missing in the fighting. The film also stars Matin Rey Tangu, an eight-year-old child artiste from Arunachal Pradesh, and Chinese actress Zhu Zhu. Tubelight releases this Friday, ahead of Eid.