Acting is by no means an easy job. To get into the mould of the character, which an actor is portraying, he has to do a lot of homework in order to get his teeth into the skin of the character. Quite often this obsession of actors to act is stretched to abysmal depths but like actors say it just cannot be helped. Each actor approaches his or her role with a different viewpoint.
In recent times, it is John Abraham who decided to learn special form of Martial Art for his role in Rocky Handsome. The first look of John Abraham set the temperature soaring with John’s brawny look holding a gun in his dapper suit attire. The actor is seen as a lean, mean power machine in Nishikant Kamat’s Rocky Handsome. John is seen doing some hand to hand action sequences choreographed by world renowned action directors!! Kecha Khamphakdee from Thailand was roped in to choreograph the action sequences for Rocky Handsome.
Amitabh Bachchan had to play a child suffering from a rare disease – Progeria in K. Balki’s Paa. For the same, the actor had to spend five hours every day to wear the prosthetics designed by Hollywood artist Christien Tinsley and Dominie Till. As R Balki explained: “They first created a mould of Amitji by pouring rubber solution on him. Then they made the skin with latex and painted veins on that. Making the mold is a one-time process but the skin had to be painted every day. That takes about four-five hours. Doing that make-up was a nightmare but Amitabh did it without any complaints.”
Akshay Kumar, who will be seen playing the role of a villain in Rajinikanth starrer Enthiran 2.0, is almost unrecognizable in the crow look pictures that have been doing the rounds on Twitter. Akshay’s pictures in his villainous avatar are bound to shock his fans. Akshay sports long eye bushes, grey hair and wears a feathered leather jacket. Akshay Kumar’s character in Enthiran 2.0 is of Dr Richard, a scientist, who turns into a crow.
Rishi Kapoor’s new look in Kapoor & Sons has surprised his fans. At first glance, we couldn’t even recognize the actor in his new looks. Rishi Kapoor’s make up in the film has been done by American artist Greg Cannom, who has worked in Titanic (1997), and was also the man behind Brad Pitt’s flawless facial transformation in the 2008 film, The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button.
For Ghajini, Aamir didn’t hesitate to shave off his head, like Salman Khan did for Tere Naam. Not only that, he had to undergo a rigorous physical training and develop a 6 pack abs for his role. For his next film Dangal too Aamir decided to gain weight as he is essaying the role of a wrestler in it, like R. Madhavan did in Saala Khadoos and Salman Khan is doing now in Sultan.
The actresses are no less when it comes to opting for authenticity. Kangana played two characters in the movie Tanu Weds Manu Returns, the sequel to Tanu Weds Manu-Tanu Sharma and Kusum Sangwan. For her Haryanvi character, the actor actually went the no makeup road and also put on a different set of teeth. A local Haryanvi accent and some bindass swag later, Kangana Ranaut did rock as fearless Kusum in Tanu Weds Manu Returns.
Ajay Devgan confesses that when Rajkumar Santoshi, with whom he had acted only in Lajja earlier prior to that, offered him the Bhagat Singh role, he took it up as a big challenge to the actor in him. “I had to prepare a hell of a lot. Though I knew who Bhagat Singh was since basically I am a Punjabi, I learnt little nuances about him only when I started laying my hands on a lot of books on Bhagat Singh which Rajji provided me to prepare myself for the role I also read several history books to know more about Bhagat Singh’s relationships with the other national leaders of that time to get an insight into his character.
Kamal Haasan does not miss even a single opportunity to take up any role, which needs him to work for hours on his makeup and completely transform himself miraculously to win accolades as an actor. When he was acting in Hindustani, whenever he was required to face the camera as the old man, a foreign make up guy was at his disposal. Kamal used to get up at 4 am and start applying make up till 11 am and give his first shot at 11 am After packing up at around 10 pm Kamal used to wash off his makeup and sleep and get up the next day by 4 am and go through the same process all over once again.
Shah Rukh Khan is playing an obsessed fan named Gaurav in YRF’s Fan. YRF hired three-time Oscar-winning makeup artist Greg Cannom to transform SRK into Gaurav. The artist was responsible for Priyanka Chopra’s makeup in 2011 Bollywood film Saat Khoon Maaf as well as Rishi Kapoor in Kapoor & Sons.
Randeep is playing the titular role in the biopic Sarbjit, along with Aishwarya Rai Bachchan. Randeep had to lose 18 kgs in 28 days to fit into the character. The actor was kept on a near-starvation diet to look like real-life Sarbjit who was kept in a 4 x 4 rat-infested room.
Like they say, no pain no gain. All these actors have proved that their obsession for their looks does pay them dividends !