Filmmaker Suneel Darshan has had fallings out with several stars, including Akshay Kumar and Sunny Deol. He has even severed ties with his brother, director Dharmesh Darshan. In an interview, he described his association with Sunny as ‘the darkest chapter’ of his life, and said that their legal differences are yet to be resolved. Suneel has claimed that Sunny Deol took money from him to star in a project that never materialised. He went on to work with Sunny’s brother, Bobby Deol, whom he had a pleasant equation with. He also declined to speak ill of their father, the legendary actor Dharmendra.
But he told journalist Vickey Lalwani that working with Sunny was like minding a child. Sunny was supposed to star in the film Jaanwar, which eventually went to a then-struggling Akshay Kumar because of their fall-out. Suneel and Akshay went their separate ways as well, after working on seven films together. Asked about the Sunny Deol episode, Suneel said, “Akshay Kumar isn’t a bad guy at all, actually. He has been much maligned. You cannot deny that he has his qualities. Sunny Deol is the darkest chapter in my life and career, but there is God above. There will be divine justice,” he said.
Explaining what happened, he continued, “These are powerful people, and they care a damn. But there will be divine justice some day, I am sure. It’s something too bitter to even put in words. I did three films with him. I did my first film, Inteqaam, with him. At that point, he was not a big star. He had a potential stardom to him. We had a relationship before that as well. We distributed a lot of his movies. We had a significant contribution in the project which was to be his launch. I believed in him. I believed that cinema needed people of his kind. During Inteqaam, I was a bit confused…”
Suneel said that his ‘confusion’ about Sunny’s behaviour continued during their second film, Lootere. But he was sure something was wrong when they collaborated on their third project, Ajay. “It was a nightmarish experience during production. It cost me much more… It was like indulging a little child, and getting him to complete your work. Honestly, I didn’t want to do a fourth film with him, but I got stuck with him. And he used emotions, and fake relationships were mentioned, and he got me into a project that he was making for himself.”
