Subhash K Jha (DNA; March 11, 2014)

Ayushmann Khurrana will be playing a 19th century Maharashtrian scientist Shivkar Bapuji Talpade in Vibhu Puri’s Bambai Fairytale. Since it is a period film, the actor says, “It’s a different language and a different universe. So far I’ve only been playing variations of myself. But with this film I started living in the past.”

The boy from Chandigarh, who is living in Mumbai for the last five years, admits, “The first thing that I did when I landed in Mumbai was to buy myself a book on how to speak Marathi. By now I can understand Marathi, but not speak the language. All my staff members are Marathi. That helps me a lot in getting the character and accent right in Bambai Fairytale. Mercifully, this is a Hindi film with Marathi here and there.”

He confesses that before this role came to him, he hadn’t ever heard of Shivkar Talpade. “Even when I Googled, I hardly got any information on him. So I had to kind of build the character from scratch. I just had one bleached picture of his. But we’ve changed his looks. Besides being a scientist, Shivkar was also charmer. That part came easily to me (laughs). He is as endearing as a little child. The character has a graph. My hair is completely different for the role. I had to hide my look from the press photographers,” he says.

Was it tough playing the 21st century dude in Bewakoofiyaan and the 19th century scientist in Bambai Fairytale at the same time? “As an actor it is very important for me to switch on and off. So I didn’t go into any intense preparation. But when I was shooting for Bambai Fairytale in a place called Gondal in Gujarat, I’d take bucket baths just to get the feel of the era. We were staying in a palace constructed in 1880. I had this huge room with a huge bathroom where I took bucket baths with Hamam soap... just for the retro feel. That was the oldest soap available.”