March 23, 2010 (Sampurn Wire): For a highlight sequence in Sajid Khan directed ‘Housefull’, Akshay Kumar gets all troubled due to a monkey which snatches Deepika’s mobile and runs away. This is the same monkey which has worked in a mega blockbuster like ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ and hence came with it’s own tantrums on the sets of it’s first Bollywood outing.
.JPG "Deepika Padukone, Akshay Kumar at Lavassa car race for women in Bandra on 6th March 2010 (6)")
Though one can’t say much about how much learning did the monkey gather from working in a setup like ‘Housefull’, for the likes of Akshay Kumar and Deepika Padukone, it turned out to be quite a handful. Apparently, when everything was locked and sealed for the shooting of the film and the schedules were finalised, there were some date problems that emerged at the last moment. No, not from the human cast of the film but, as you guessed it right, the monkey.
“Can you beat that”, questions Sajid in an animated tone, “Hamaara overseas schedule tha. Din ke lakhon paise de rahe they, and there was this monkey holding us to ransom. We were in London at that time and were all set to fly to Italy and shoot some more scenes there, inculding the one featuring the monkey. However, our star-monkey requested a change in his date diary. He was busy and couldn’t travel to Italy. Accordingly my dear friends like Akshay and Deepika had to readjust their diaries for a day. So sweet of them. We stayed in London for an additional day and did a cheat shoot with the monkey while presenting the location as some place in Italy.”
The requirement of the scene was to have Akshay get all beaten up by the monkey; so much so that there were multiple slaps that he ended up receiving with tell tale marks all over his face.
Laughs Sajid, “While Akshay was sport enough to live with the on-screen humiliation, all for the sake of his audience and the fun that the sequence promised, it seemed that the monkey had other ideas. He wanted to give that ‘perfect take’ and for that he went through multiple rehearsals before facing the camera.”
– Rudhir Burman / Sampurn Wire
