A weak-looking character (not in terms of physique) is half the battle lost, or so believes makeup and hair expert Subhash Shinde, who helped Shraddha Kapoor metamorphose into Haseena Parkar while shooting the biopic on the dreaded female gang lord. He was also in-charge of transforming her brother, actor Siddhanth Kapoor into Haseena's brother, Dawood Ibrahim in director Apoorva Lakhia's biopic on one of Mumbai's most prominent mafia queens. It's co-produced by Haseena's cousin Sameer Antulay and Babu Tyagi, and produced by Nahid Khan.

“I went by the script and dug out pictures of Haseena and Dawood from the internet. The challenge was to make someone as delicate-looking as Shraddha to look like a woman who became a domineering gang leader after she was wronged on several levels. Her basic look had to transform from a 17-year-old girl to a 55-year-old woman who has seen struggle. With Siddhanth, it was a different challenge. I had to match his appearance with Dawood's. If he didn't come close to what Dawood looked like, his character wouldn't have made an impact. A biopic or a film based on real incidents needs actors to look as much like the people they play as possible,“ says Subhash Shinde, who has also worked on Aishwarya Rai Bachchan's get-up in Sarbjit.

Subhash worked on Shraddha's skin tone to make it look rough. As he added years to her appearance, he also made her skin look pigmented and dull in portions, something that commonly occurs in an individual's skin tone over the years. “Shraddha couldn't have had a peaches-and-cream complexion in the film because that's not what her character demands. I had someone sketch Shraddha and Siddhanth to get an idea of how they'd look with prosthetics. Then, I blended in colours to see which skin tone really suits them. And then, we got down to doing look tests. Apoorva was very involved; he saw to it that while shooting, we didn't just touch up faces but also hands and other parts of the body that are visible in a scene. Like Shraddha's face couldn't have looked 55 and hands, 25. I conducted just two look tests on Shraddha and Siddhanth because I had already tested all the appearances on other junior actors with similar features,“ recalls Subhash, adding that while it took two-three hours for the actors to get into hair and makeup, it took only 20 minutes for them to slip out of it.

As opposed to what is believed, the film hasn't been too big on the use of prosthetics. Siddhanth's double chin and Shraddha's swollen face are among the few areas where prosthetic make-up was introduced. “Shraddha and Siddhanth looked heavy with the help of padding beneath their clothes. We just had to do the needful for their face. Even when I was working with Aishwarya in Sarbjit, I used shading to give her face the requisite age. Too much use of prosthetics can make the look seem artificial. With films getting closer to reality, one has to be careful about this because it impacts the narrative,“ says Subhash.

Haseena Parkar, presented by Swiss Entertainment releases tomorrow.