was playing a pivotal character in the film, was also required to physically tone up for an entirely different bikini scene. Filming Filming in India, mainly in Goa, began on 9 November 2010 and continued until the end of December 2010. The song "Buddhi Do Bhagwaan" was filmed on Miramar beach in Goa. The second phase of filming began in New Zealand in mid January 2011, in locations across Wellington and Auckland. Wellington City Council closed some areas of the city centre for two weeks so there would be no problems in shooting. Scenes were shot across the City to Sea Bridge, Okarito Lagoon on New Zealand's South Island, Te Papa's Awesome Forces Museum, Cuba Mall and in the Tulsi Indian restaurant. The replication of the "Mini Coopers" scene from the 2003 version of The Italian Job was filmed at Wellington Airport, which Bachchan had difficulty with due to his height, as he could not get in and out of the cars quickly. There was some controversy when airport officials refused to give permission for filming when they felt it was dangerous; the scene required a plane to overfly three Minis, which were being driven by Bachchan, Kapoor and Kher, and miss by inches. The traffic jam sequence involving the Minis was also shot in Wellington. Sixth months before shooting had commenced in New Zealand, Abbas Mustan met with the Tourism Board and Film Council in Wellington and they put up LED signs, to notify local residents of the street closure during that weekend. The crew finished shooting and left New Zealand just days before an earthquake hit the country. The third schedule of shooting, which was the longest and most important, began on April 2011 in parts of Siberia, St Petersburg and Murmansk. For the shooting in Siberia, the directors had a lot of difficulty acquiring permission. Similarly, they had also faced several problems during the shooting in New Zealand. Describing this ordeal, Mustan Burmawalla said, "We had to seek lot of permissions for a traffic jam scene to be shot in New Zealand and that took a long time. While, in Russia we faced language problem, we appointed about 25 interpreters. We needed them to help us about basic things like where to go to eat etc,". Owing to the difficulty allotting dates, Bachchan had to leave another project by Ram Gopal Varma titled Department, whom Varma would