Abhay Deol has dared to bare his torso in Dibakar Banerjee’s “Shanghai” a la Ranbir Kapoor’s in “Saawariya”. But while the latter wore a towel, Deol will be seen in a lungi (sarong) in a scene.
The actor plays a Tamil bureaucrat in the political thriller. It is rare for him to take off his shirt.
“It’s not a towel. It’s a South Indian lungi,” Deol said, flashing his dimpled smile at a press conference on Monday.
In 2011, it was reported that Deol insisted on wearing a vest for the song Paint It Red for the movie Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara.
In Shanghai, he was apprehensive about wearing just a lungi. “I cried many days, [asking] ‘Why are you making me wear this?’ But then we decided to go with it. I told Dibakar to take care of the lighting, that’s all,” said the 36-year-old.
Unlike most actors, who focus on building perfect abs for a topless scene, Deol didn’t alter his physique. “Dibakar said I shouldn’t go and make a gym body with six packs. He said, ‘Be athletic, keep your physique as it is, don’t pump yourself with steroids otherwise you won’t look like an IAS [Indian Administrative Service] officer for sure,’” Deol said.
Banerjee says the focus was more on the scene, rather than Deol’s body.
“While filming that scene, we weren’t really thinking what Abhay would look like, because it was a one-take scene [where] a burning brick ... had to crash in through a window to the left of Abhay, landing to [his] right and keep burning. There were three risks — it could have hit Abhay, it could have hit the camera or it could have hit the laptop in front of Abhay.
“We were really nervous about it, so how Abhay looked hardly mattered. But I remember I wanted him to grow a slight paunch for it. I am sure he would have done it, but we didn’t have time,” said the filmmaker.
Shanghai also features Emraan Hashmi and Kalki Koechlin.
