While non-dancer Shraddha Kapoor had to become a dancer for ABCD 2, out this weekend, her co-star Varun Dhawan didn’t have an easier time preparing for his dancing character Suresh either, even creating impressive eight-pack abs.
“There was a lot of training done, especially for the aerial silk dance,” Dhawan told tabloid! at a press junket in Dubai in May. “The song is called Ma Ki Chunnar, sung by Arijit Singh, and is a beautiful song. This is the first time I’ve done contemporary and Punit [Pathak, of TV reality show Jhalak Dikhla Jaa fame] has choreographed that portion. The song shows a lot of anguish and it’s probably the hardest dance I’ve done in my life. It’s very flowy and I had to rehearse a lot for it. That’s when I started losing weight.”
“Varun had tweeted an image and said ‘six pack abs’. I think he made a mistake counting,” said Kapoor. “Varun how have you made these eight packs?”
“[I tweeted ‘six packs’] because the last two aren’t as defined –” said Dhawan.
“How can you say that? I could count them — 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7… 8…,” interjects Kapoor.
“They do show sometimes, well,” smiled Dhawan. “But more than the abs, when doing these dance routines, I lost a lot of weight and she lost a lot of weight. My body fat percentage was at a good 6-7 per cent when I was doing Chunnar. It’s only when you are dancing, your body stretches and fat from those areas just evaporates. Dancing, I think, is the best exercise a person can do and it’s so much fun to do. As to how good a dancer I’ve become, earlier when I would warm up, I’d do the usual bending and stretching. Now when I’ve trained with these guys it’s gone to a different level. Would you believe we crack our wrists because they take so much load.”
“We had a blast,” they chorus again.
“Also if you see the body of a professional dancer, all these boys have abs, they are lean,” continues Kapoor.
“And they eat everything!” Dhawan cuts in again.
“And they eat everything – even the ‘fictitious’ girls also are very strong. I know I’ve become strong, I can lift things now that I could never do before,” said Kapoor.
“That defines it,” said Dhawan, lifting Kapoor’s arm to point at her muscles.
“You can’t see Varun Dhawan’s eight packs now but you will see them very clearly in the film – close up, mid shot, wide shot, every angle”.
“Shut the door,” laughed Dhawan.