Vijay Vikram Singh on Meeting Sunny Deol: The Day Dharmendra Was Hospitalized

When Sunny Deol Laughed at His Own Line

Some stories about celebrities are about glamour.

This one, shared by actor Vijay Vikram Singh on Accompany Akki, is about something rarer: quiet humility from a man who has spent decades as one of Bollywood's biggest action stars.

A Shoot That Started Without Him

Vijay Vikram Singh was set to work on a film with Sunny Deol, directed under Siddharth Sir, who had given the team a firm shooting start date.

The team arrived on schedule and shooting began. But Sunny Deol was missing.

It turned out his father, veteran actor Dharmendra, was critically ill at the time.

The family was going through what Vijay Vikram Singh describes as intense uncertainty, with Dharmendra hospitalized and, by some accounts, in a coma-like state.

Despite this, and against what most people would consider reasonable, Sunny Deol still showed up within a few days to shoot his portions of the film.

"Hats off to Sunny Deol for shooting the film during that time," Vijay Vikram Singh says, still visibly moved by the memory.

The First Meeting

When Sunny Deol finally arrived on set, the director introduced Vijay Vikram Singh to him directly, noting that he played the judge in the film.

What followed was, in Vijay Vikram Singh's words, an encounter with someone unexpectedly humble and sweet, someone whose warmth was difficult to put into language.

Like most people meeting a star of that stature, Vijay Vikram Singh admits he could not hold back a fan moment.

He told Sunny Deol that for him personally, the most exciting part of the film was this: the actor once known for delivering the iconic courtroom line "date after date" in Damini was now, in this film, going to be given a date by him.

Sunny Deol burst out laughing. It was only afterward that Vijay Vikram Singh wondered if the joke had landed the way he intended, or if he had simply blurted out something in the moment.

That kind of nervous excitement, he says, is not something that usually happens to him around celebrities.

Despite years of meeting well known people through his work, he rarely feels starstruck. Sunny Deol was the exception.

The Volcano Behind the Calm

Vijay Vikram Singh goes on to describe what makes Sunny Deol different as a performer and as a person.

Off camera, he is soft spoken and grounded, someone who puts people at ease. But there is, in Vijay Vikram Singh's description, a volcano inside him, an intensity that most people rarely see directly.

What makes Sunny Deol exceptional as an actor, he says, is knowing exactly where and when to let that volcano surface.

 It shows first in his eyes, building quietly within a scene, before it finally erupts on screen. When it does, the effect is electric.

But outside of that, Vijay Vikram Singh insists, Sunny Deol is simply a humble, simple, and sweet person.

On the last day of the shoot, when Sunny Deol's team was around as usual, Vijay Vikram Singh asked for a photo.

Sunny Deol welcomed him warmly, pulled him close for the picture, and the two spoke at length afterward.

It was, Vijay Vikram Singh says, a side of a major star that many people never get to see.

A Second Film, A Familiar Greeting

The story does not end there. Vijay Vikram Singh later had the good fortune of working with Sunny Deol again, this time on a different film, for what was just a single day of shooting.

He was not sure Sunny Deol would even remember him. But the moment Sunny Deol spotted him on set, he immediately called out, "There you are, judge sahab, how are you?"

Vijay Vikram Singh reminded him that he was there again, this time in a role he could not yet reveal much about, since the film had not been announced.

What he could share was that once again, he played a boss opposite Sunny Deol, this time scolding him on screen instead of judging him.

Given his screen presence, Vijay Vikram Singh jokes that at this point, he could believably play the boss of every hero in the industry.

The Real Lesson

Working with Sunny Deol twice, Vijay Vikram Singh says, was an experience he will never forget, not because of the stardom, but because of what it revealed about character. Showing up for work during one of the hardest periods of his personal life, staying humble despite decades of superstardom, and remembering a co-actor from a small role years later are not things that come naturally to most people, let alone stars of that scale.

It is a reminder that presence, professionalism, and warmth often matter more than any single performance. And sometimes, the best stories about the biggest stars are not the ones on screen, but the ones that happen quietly between takes.

Watch the full conversation with Vijay Vikram Singh on Accompany Akki, where he shares more stories from his journey in front of and around the camera.

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