Nana Patekar on Thursday apologised for slapping a boy during a film shooting in Varanasi, saying that he mistook the selfie-seeking fan for his crew member.
A video of the veteran actor went viral on social media on Wednesday where he is hitting the boy who came close to him during a scene and tried to click a photo.
The Vaccine War actor, who was visibly angry, smacked the fan on the back of his head. A man stationed close to Patekar then grabs the young man by his neck and takes him away.
Patekar was shooting for filmmaker Anil Sharma’s upcoming movie Journey.
The 72-year-old actor posted a video message on microblogging site X and said the 10-second clip has been “misinterpreted” by many people.
“What actually happened was a misunderstanding during the rehearsal of a shot from my upcoming film Journey,” he wrote.
In his video message, Patekar clarified that he was shooting for a scene in which he was supposed to hit a crew member.
“In the scene, a man was going to ask me if I wanted to sell my hat. And I’m supposed to hit the man on the back of his head and tell him to not misbehave. We had one rehearsal and we were scheduled to have a second rehearsal.
“We were about to begin when the boy in the video came inside and I didn’t know who he was, I thought he was our guy. So as per the scene, I hit him and told him that he should not misbehave. But then I realised he was not our guy. By the time I started calling him back, he ran away,” the actor said. (IANS)
