On-screen, John Abraham and Shah Rukh Khan might have been fierce adversaries in Pathaan, but off-screen, their relationship was everything except combative. John unveiled that while Pathaan was being made, he would always call up SRK to be updated on the movie's progress. This is because Producer Aditya Chopra who is known for his stringent rules allowed only SRK to watch the film during its production; therefore, only he had access to its advancement.
Produced by Siddharth Anand, Pathaan happened to be the year’s highest-grossing blockbuster making a comeback of Shah Rukh Khan on screen. John was the villain in the movie while SRK appeared as an Indian soldier. In a recent interview with Ranveer Allahbadia, John reflected on the historic success of this film and how he and Shah Rukh realized it was a massive hit for them.
“Whenever we knew that this film was going to work out well together there were fireworks and I said you know what I mean?” John recollected detailing his experience on the opening day of Pathaan wherein box office records were broken.
John also talked about how much he relied upon Shah Rukh for film updates when Aditya Chopra kept things secret. "Aditya Chopra is very strict when it comes to showing his films to anyone else other than Shah Rukh Khan! So whatever information I got would come to me from Shah Rukh! Before the film, I would call him and ask him, ‘How is it?’ and he would tell me. He’s so sweet. Our energy matched.”
On that note, John nostalgically remembered his relationship with SRK mentioning how he respects him as a superstar. "Shah Rukh had seen all my first movies when my career started and finally we worked together in Pathaan. Hence, it was a combination of respect and love. He is a very intelligent person who is also very affectionate and charming. We really went along.”
Pathaan, which starred Deepika Padukone as well, made history when it became the first ever Bollywood film to cross the 500 crore mark at the Indian box office. However, this record was surpassed by Shah Rukh's Jawan, with a current all-India net collection of ₹640 crore, being the highest-grossing Bollywood film.
John’s next movie that he looks forward to most is Vedaa. The director for this Nikkhil Advani movie has been given August 15th as its release date; however, it will face competition from Shraddha Kapoor’s Stree 2 and Akshay Kumar’s Khel Khel Mein.
