Abhishek Bachchan reveals how Aishwarya Rai had to get creative to stitch a fat suit for him on Mani Ratnam’s Guru sets

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In the year 2007, Abhishek Bachchan and Aishwarya Rai appeared together in Mani Ratnam’s movie titled Guru. More recently, Abhishek reminisced about an amusing incident from their film days. He recalled his future spouse sewing a large costume for him, as the director spontaneously chose to film a song scene without prior notice.

During a recent discussion at G5A Cinema House’s Mani Ratnam retrospective, Abhishek Bachchan recounted an engaging story from when he collaborated with Mani Ratnam on the film ‘Guru’. He reminisced about a moment during filming where they were residing in a guest house. One day, Mani Ratnam approached him and requested a rehearsal with choreographer Brinda Gopal.

In reaction to this situation, the actor recalled stating that they were meant to film the younger version of Gurukant Desai instead of the song. However, when Bachchan fell down, he noticed the choreographer looking puzzled and understood that the director had pulled off one of his unexpected moves, similar to a cricket ‘googly.’

Actor playing the role of the King disclosed that early that day, they received an initial, unfinished version of the song “Ek Lo Ek Muft,” which was composed by AR Rahman and sung by Bappi Lahiri. He referred to it as a “click track” used for filming purposes, lacking the complete music.

Abhishek recollected that earlier he had been told by him to add weight within two months. That particular night, Ameira Punvani (costume designer) and Aishwarya created a fat suit for me by sewing blankets together. Later, they covered my hair with some dark gray material. He instructed me to shave my head, but I responded that we were still filming the younger scenes. Meanwhile, I was acting to the rhythm of a click track, he added.

Abhishek humorously recounted that when it came to filming Aishwarya Rai’s dance scene in the song, AR Rahman had already finished and submitted the entire track prior. “As she started dancing,” he laughed, “I was left there, wondering, ‘What on earth is going on?!’

The actor recalled the challenging filming experience under Mani Ratnam’s direction, where they wore bulky costumes amidst scorching 60-degree Celsius heat. As he put it, “During that song sequence, you can notice a few dancers’ shoe rubber sticking to the cave walls due to the intense summer heat.

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2025-01-28 11:50