Saif Ali Khan says one fight scene in Haiwaan cost him two full days of recovery. The actor told Free Press Journal that the sequence was shot without visual effects or a body double, and he's not exaggerating how rough it got.

Khan plays a visually impaired man trained in martial arts in the Priyadarshan-directed film, and the scene in question is built around a beating that turns into payback. "It's a scene with a great build-up because the characters torture and bash up my character, kicking and slapping him. As an audience, you want him to retaliate which he eventually does," Khan said.

What separates this from your standard hero-fights-back moment, per Khan, is how little of it was faked. Stunt director Silva choreographed the sequence, and the set, by the actor's account, was genuinely littered with broken glass from smashed photo frames and cupboards. "There's no special effects added to it, there were no duplicates. There's very little fakery in these scenes. The room has broken glass everywhere. It was very raw and kind of violent and it was utterly exhausting because after that I had to lie down for two days," he said.

Khan, 56, admits he underestimated what the scene would take out of him. "I thought I was alright but I was exhausted because that is how intense the action scene was. It's wasn't CGI or harness backed action scenes, the fight scene is just raw," he said. And yet he calls it fun.

Here's the odd part. He'd actually asked for dedicated training ahead of the shoot. That request didn't work out. Instead, he and Silva ran through a handful of moves before the cameras rolled, choosing raw over rehearsed. "There wasn't much prep before the scene... The idea was to make it very raw," Khan said, recalling glass pieces scattered across the floor after the take. He came away with the usual cuts and bruises, nothing more serious, and had nothing but praise for his stunt team. "Silva is a master," he said.

Haiwaan is Khan's first film with Priyadarshan and puts him opposite Akshay Kumar for the first time in 18 years. Boman Irani, Sayami Kher and Shriya Pilgaonkar fill out the cast. The trailer has kept the plot largely under wraps, offering only glimpses of Khan's character and the fighting skills folded into his backstory.

The film opens in theatres September 11, landing in a week where Mirzapur The Movie and Hanuman Ansh are still doing business at the box office. Whether a fight scene built on real glass and real exhaustion translates into the kind of talk Haiwaan needs will be clear soon enough.