Himesh Mankad (MUMBAI MIRROR; September 26, 2019)

In Sajid Nadiadwala’s reincarnation comedy, the Farhad Samji-directed Housefull 4, Akshay Kumar will be a seen in a double role—as a London-based barber, Harry, in the present-day portions and the king, Bala, in the flashback sequences. Mirror has learnt that for the period set-up, the 52-year-old actor went through two-and-a-half hours of prosthetics session every morning to transform into the character. “Several looks were considered for the quirky yet powerful part. Before taking the film on the floors last year, 3D models of all the characters were prepared and the team zeroed down on the bald look for Akshay,” reveals a source close to the development.

The make-up for all characters was by Preetisheel G Singh, who has previously worked on Ranveer Singh’s look as Alauddin Khilji in Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Padmaavat and another Nadiadwala production, the recently-released Sushant Singh Rajput and Shraddha Kapoor-starrer Chhichhore. By her own admission, designing Akshay’s look was challenging. “He had to look absolutely bald, in a way that one can’t even see the five o’clock shadow,” she says.

The makers got Rimple and Harpreet Narula, who have also worked on Padmaavat, to design the costumes. “The period portion of the film was shot at a palace in Jaisalmer and on a set in Mumbai in two schedules last year. Though Housefull is a comedy franchise, Nadiadwala was keen on getting authentic getups for the 1419 era, so he got a team that has prior experience of working on a period film,” the source adds.

The comedy of errors also features Riteish Deshmukh, Bobby Deol, Kriti Sanon, Pooja Hegde and Kriti Kharbanda in double roles.

Sushant Singh Rajput and Shraddha Kapoor experiment with hair, make-up to age gracefully for their upcoming film
Himesh Mankad (MUMBAI MIRROR; February 27, 2019)

The final schedule of Nitesh Tiwari’s Chhichhore kicks off this week in Mumbai and the monthlong shoot will feature all its seven actors—Sushant Singh Rajput, Shraddha Kapoor, Varun Sharma, Tahir Raj Bhasin, Naveen Polishetty, Tushar Pandey and Saharsh Kumar Shukla. Set in an engineering college, the Sajid Nadiadwala production sees the actors transition from collegians to middle-aged characters.

To get the look right, the actors attended one-onone sessions with make-up and prosthetic artist Preetisheel Singh. Shraddha’s workshop was on February 7, two days before she flew to London for Street Dancer, while Sushant’s was just a few days ago.

Talking about the process, Preetisheel admits the actors will have to go through the grind of transforming into their characters for the next 30 days. “It will take an hour-and-a-half to get them ready and another 20 minutes to remove the make-up,” she states, promising a seamless change in the film because every character has been designed keeping the respective actor’s personality traits in mind. “Both Shraddha and Sushant have been given salt-and-pepper wigs, with a receding hairline for the latter. For their middle-aged looks, we have used an old stipple, with under-eye, nasolabial lines, and highlighted their jaws,” she adds.

Chhichhore chronicles the life of seven friends from 1992 to the present day and is inspired by Nitesh’s own college days.

Nitesh Tiwari on the leads of his next, in which they go from college-goers to middle-aged characters
Natasha Coutinho (MUMBAI MIRROR; October 12, 2018)

On September 30, Nitesh Tiwari kicked off the shoot of his next directorial, Chhichhore, which features Sushant Singh Rajput and Shraddha Kapoor as leads, in Mumbai. The film is set in an engineering college and sees the duo age from college-goers to middle-aged characters.

“I spent four years of my student life in the IIT-Bombay hostel, where giving everyone nicknames that ranged from conventional to weird is a kind of a tradition. While Aniruddh would become Anni and Sandeep was Sandy, the weird ones were contextual,” the director says, adding that it served as inspiration for his characters. “In the film, we have an angsty guy called Acid, another guy who misses his mother a lot is called Mummy.” The trickiest thing about these nicknames, Nitesh points out, is that they tend to stick for life. “I still call my college friends Guppa, Gucci, Puke, B-Zero, Dard Kumar, Skinny, Bhindi, Danda,” he laughs.

Moving on to his more conventionally-named leads, Anni and Maya, the filmmaker says that casting them was challenging as they were required to look convincing before and after the time-leap. “Sushant and Shraddha are phenomenal actors. And fortunately for me, Sajid sir (Nadiadwala, producer) understands the creative vision of his director. We had long chats about the protagonists. He was happy to see Sushant and Shraddha as Anni and Maya as this is also the first time they have paired up on screen,” Nitesh reveals.

He further informs that the entire film is based and will be shot in Mumbai. “I prefer to shoot in real locations, so the portions set in the engineering college will be filmed on an actual campus,” he informs.

While Aamir Khan famously underwent body transformations to play Mahaveer Phogat in Nitesh’s 2016 directorial Dangal, the filmmaker has put in extensive research for his next too. “The looks have been designed by Preetisheel (Singh, prosthetic and makeup artist), whose work I really like. For reference points, I shared snaps of my friends from college days to presentday. The biggest challenge was getting all the characters in the film to age differently with time. So, everything was planned thoughtfully, and she has executed them with a lot of finesse,” Nitesh adds.

Rishi Kapoor on his legacy, his father and his son, and why acting is more enjoyable now
Roshmila Bhattacharya (MUMBAI MIRROR; April 25, 2018)

When watching the trailer of your upcoming film 102 Not Out, noting the changing expressions, mood swings and subtle inflections in the voice, one realises that playing a 75-year-old character couldn’t have been easy.
It was a challenge but that makes it exciting for an actor. Umesh (director Umesh Shukla) and I took the character forward from Saumya Joshi’s original play, giving him creased shirts two sizes large and shoulders stooped from the tension he’s lugging around. Babulal Vakharia is khadoos, depressed and in denial. His 102-year-old father who aspires to be the world’s oldest man, wants to send him away to an old age home because he’s the most depressed man around. Herein lies the conflict and the story of the film.

What made the journey more interesting was Preetisheel Singh’s make-up. While playing a 90-year-old man in Kapoor & Sons I’d relied on prosthetics, this time it was just a wig, moustache and Amit ji (Amitabh Bachchan) complementing me with his getup. It wasn’t an easy walk-on part but no character actor has it easy because you’re not running around trees, serenading the heroine.

When the character requires you to be low, does the emotion spill over into real life?
Babulal’s not low, he’s straitjacketed with a short circuit, picky about details, bound by timetables and finicky about rituals.

Are you that finicky in real life?
Not like Babulal, who’s an eccentric, an extremist. I’m a normal person who takes life as it comes. In his case his life is disrupted if his routine is disturbed.

You’re in an interesting phase in your career with films like 102 Not Out, Mulk and Rajma Chawal, taking elderly characters out of the stereotype and towards newer horizons...
It’s a bloody high! I’m finally getting to play characters and not just be Rishi Kapoor. The Kapoor in Kapoor & Sons was not Rishi Kapoor. Ditto Santosh Duggal in Do Dooni Chaar, Romy Rolly in Luck By Chance, Rauf Lala in Agneepath and Iqbal Seth in D-Day. Even DCP Ravikant Phogat in Aurangzeb was an exciting role but it was a boring film and flopped so no one saw it. I keep changing Rishi Kapoor’s face all the time. I’m looking for challenges because all my life I only sang songs and romanced heroines. As I tell my wife, I’ll even lose weight for a film if I must but not just for the heck of it.

Even in your prime you were seen as an actor who could deliver…
But except for Prem Rog, Tawaif and Damini the rest were just romantic roles in films shot in Ooty, Kashmir and Switzerland. Back then we didn’t experiment. Even now the front benchers want maar dhaad — such films will always run in India — but we also have a new multiplex audience that is cinema literate and looking for different content. Films are no longer about song and dance, romance and the youth. For me content has always been king and I welcome this change.

What was your relationship with your father, Raj Kapoor, like?
He wasn’t just my father but also my guru who taught me the ropes and introduced me twice, in Mera Naam Joker and Bobby. I was in awe of him which was born out of love, respect and admiration. He was Raj Kapoor; there was a halo around his head. Till we completed school, we hardly saw him because he was busy making films. We didn’t know he was a popular actor-director, but we knew he was an important man because everywhere we went, people would look at us. Even in this hotel, if we came for dinner without a reservation, we got a table easily because of him. We never misused that privilege but he remained an awe-inspiring figure even when I was working with him.

Was he a jovial man?
No, he was a serious man whose work was his nirvana. But he was a kind father who went away too soon.

Has Rishi Kapoor changed with time?
Why would I change? Am I not doing good work? Have I not lasted in this industry for 45 years?

I meant as a person, not an actor...
I am a difficult man and not easy to get along with. I’m God-fearing and ritualistic. I pray twice a day, I’m bound by tradition and I am conservative. I’m also a big boozer.

And as a father?
I’m a loving father now but there was a time when my son and I didn’t get along because I was so busy. I’ve never given my son the liberty of being on back-slapping terms with me. There was this invisible glass pane between us… It’s like history repeating itself as it seems almost like my equation with my father. Now, I want Ranbir to get married, have some kids, so I can be a grandfather and make up for everything there.

Both of you are passionate about acting…
That’s the family trademark. Ranbir is the fourth generation of Kapoor males in the industry. In 107 years of Indian cinema, our contribution has been 90-plus years. Films are our livelihood, that’s the only thing I know how to do, but I also enjoy it and I am a hardworking actor. The Kapoor surname or Bobby, which I got because my work was appreciated in Mera Naam Joker, didn’t make me an overnight star. There are many Kapoors who didn’t make it, we were chosen by the people. There is no nepotism in films.

Please elaborate…
Well, perhaps I didn’t sleep on the road and didn’t starve because I came from a well-to-do family, but I also struggled as much as my contemporaries. Maybe not for a break but later to regain ground. Zanjeer released in the same year as Bobby and romance made way for action. I had to struggle to withstand such cyclones and that’s no mean feat. Today, thanks to my autobiography, Khullam Khulla, I’m getting invited by big corporate houses and even Google to tell my inspirational story.

Like you, Ranbir isn’t afraid to go against the ‘hero’ image…
(Smiling proudly) Yes, and the reactions to his new film Sanju have been phenomenal. All the calls and messages I’ve been getting since morning are about him. He always wanted to be an actor but told his mother that he wouldn’t wear a twisted cap on his head and have 40 dancers suddenly appear behind him. He wanted a different career graph and took on serious films like Wake Up Sid and Rocket Singh. Some films, like Jagga Jasoos and Bombay Velvet, failed, but no actor has a 100 per cent track record. But as the saying goes, ‘Form is temporary, class is permanent’.

Mohar Basu (MID-DAY; October 9, 2017)

Intimidating, bold and dramatic, Ranveer Singh's first look as the Delhi sultan Alauddin Khilji released last week set social media ablaze due to the actor's charisma. However, Sanjay Leela Bhansali isn't one to leave his work undone. Apart from washing the leading man of his magnum opus, Padmavati, under layers of cosmetics, the director has also invested time in ensuring his attires do justice to his grey character.

The herculean task of replicating the era via Singh's attires lay with Delhi designers Rimple and Harpreet Narula, who attempted to balance the regality with Khilji's menacing avatar. Talking to mid-day about her creations, Rimple says she hoped to create a front that people would remember for several years. "We wanted to create a look of an antagonist that would align with Bhansali's vision. Given Khilji's Turkish origins, we conducted research on the costumes and textiles of the belt, looking up areas like Afghanistan and Kazakhistan, to Central Asia, around Turkey."

The textile samples, including the suzani and tapestry fabrics that the designers collected during their previous travels were referenced to replicate the era. Their research, coupled with the knowledge that their muse had to appear ominous, enabled them to arrive at their designs, Harpreet says. "Khilji's colour palette is decidedly dark. We have used robust nomadic elements, layered with different textures and fabrics to achieve a rugged look. This goes with the character's evolution, from a young warrior-invader, to the Sultan of India, who is besotted by Rani Padmavati's [played by Deepika Padukone] beauty. Vintage shawls and drapes have been used to style the hand-crafted armours to create an authentic look."

While Singh confesses to feeling "powerful" in the garb of Khilji, he admits he had minimal contribution in designing. "All the work has been done by Rimple and Harpreet. I credit the makeup and prosthetics team, headed by Preetisheel Singh. Also, Sanjay sir meticulously curates every aspect of the look. It's a testament to his detailed approach."