Jaideep Ahlawat was sure he would be shot by cops in US after he was pulled over along with Kamal Haasan: ‘Rahul Bose asked them to hurry up'

Indian Express

24-04-2025

Jaideep Ahlawat was fairly new in the entertainment industry when he got a chance to work with Kamal Haasan in the actor's directorial Vishwaroopam. In a recent interview, Jaideep recalled an incident from their shoot in the US when the country was on 'high alert' and he was surrounded by a bunch of cop cars while he was filming a scene with co-actor Rahul Bose. Jaideep said that he was actually scared when all of this went down in New York and was just praying that they don't shoot him.
Jaideep appeared on the YouTube channel Khaane Mein Kya Hai and recalled that this was a few years after 9/11 but since this was right before Christmas, the authorities were on high alert. Jaideep shared that they were filming in a car on Brooklyn Bridge while driving across it, and Kamal wanted to finish the dialogue portion of the scene on the bridge itself. 'I was driving and Rahul Bose was sitting next to me. And the scene was just with the two of us,' he said and added that they were a convoy of three cars, with one car ahead of them that had all the permissions, and another car following them which had the monitor, the cinematographer and Kamal.
'So the plan was that we will drive slowly so we can finish the scene. We finished one trip on the bridge and Kamal sir felt that we could do one more take. So we had to come back on the bridge and it takes almost 30 minutes to come back on it. We came back and decided to drive even more slowly. The moment we reached the bridge, it was a full filmy scene. 8-10 cars suddenly appeared with sirens blasting. The cops came out and said, 'put your hands on the wheel'. Just before this Rahul had performed a scene where he was offering namaaz,' he recalled.
Jaideep said that as he sat there, he actually started thinking that they might shoot him. 'I was sitting there and thinking 'please don't shoot me'. The cop's hand was on the holster. He asked me to roll down the windows which were all black. I was only thinking that 'please don't make them shoot, let them at least listen then we will see what happens next'. Someone told them that the first car has all the permission but by that time, I was completely out of it. I was so scared,' he said.
Jaideep said that whilst all of this was going on, Rahul asked the cop, 'Please hurry up, I have a flight to catch.' Jaideep recalled his reaction to this and shared, 'was sitting there and thinking that you don't have to say this.' He shared that once all of this was done, he wondered that if he had gotten arrested with Kamal, the Indian media would have been all over it. 'When all of this got over, I was thinking, if we had gotten arrested then, it would have been all over Indian media that Jaideep Ahlawat and Kamal Haasan were arrested,' he remembered with a laugh.
He shared that after all of this, Kamal asked them to give another take since they were already on the bridge. 'Kamal sir didn't say anything during all of this. He knew that the local guys will handle it better so he stayed out of it. So now, since we were on the bridge, and we had to cross it, he said 'let's do another take since we are on the bridge',' he said.