Ayushmann Khurrana on his next in which he plays a small-town guy with an increasingly receding hairline
Natasha Coutinho (MUMBAI MIRROR; May 25, 2019)

Ayushmann Khurrana’s next, Dinesh Vijan’s quirky comedy Bala went on the floors in Mumbai earlier in the month and moves to Kanpur in the coming week. It revolves around a prematurely balding guy, and a small-town girl, played by Bhumi Pednekar, at odds with a society obsessed with fair skin. Yami Gautam also features in the film. The actor admits that they will be showing two-three stages of baldness in the film. “But it’s difficult to shave my head because one day I will be shooting stage one, the next day stage two and so on, without following the natural progression all through. So, we will have to rely on prosthetics,” Ayushmann reasons.

The actor adds that the Amar Kaushik-directorial will touch a chord with a lot of people who are facing the problem of losing their hair embarrassingly soon. “We have made films on various topics and issues, this one is one of the most topical and relatable as men across the country, maybe even the world, are grappling with it. Thankfully, I’m blessed with good hair but many of my friends who are in their early 30s, are complaining of a receding or thinning hairline. So, I’m aware that though we are dealing with the subject in a light-hearted manner, it is a serious issue.”

Ayushmann has had back-to-back film announcements this year. Besides Bala there’s Anubhav Sinha’s Article 15 in which he plays a cop for the first time, Raaj Shaandilyaa’s Dream Girl in which he experiments with a woman’s voice, Hitesh Kewalya’s gay love story Shubh Mangal Zyada Saavdhan and Shoojit Sircar’s quirky comedy Gulabo Sitabo with Amitabh Bachchan. He acknowledges that he normally shoots two films a year but this year, he’s been getting great scripts. “There have been back-to-back announcements, but the releases will be spaced out,” he promises. “I should have three films opening this year and two in 2020.” The last two years have been really good for the actor, with consecutive hits in Aanand L Rai’s Shubh Mangal Saavdhaan and Junglee Pictures’s Bareilly Ki Barfi in 2018 and Sriram Raghavan’s AndhaDhun and Junglee Pictures’ Badhaai Ho! last year.