“I wasn’t scared when I was gaining weight. It was Kiran, my mom and the people close to me, who were scared,” he says. On the other hand his little son Azad enjoyed the chubby version of his father: “He would come and cuddle with me all the time as he found me like a big teddy bear.”
Aamir had the option to use body suit to look fat in the film but the actor decided against it as he wanted to get a perfect body language, “All the mannerisms change depending on your body weight and we wanted to show a natural process. Mujhe shoe ki lace tie karne mein bhi dikkat hoti thi (I’d have issues tying my shoe lace),” the actor says. Friends of his even warned him, suggesting this could be the end of his career: “Many felt that it was impossible for me to shed weight and Dangal would be my last film.”
The scarier part was to knock off all the excess flab and get six packs abs for which Aamir had only five months. Recalling his tremendous weight loss journey, he says, “At first I thought that I had reached a point of no return. I used to feel horrible when I used to see myself in mirror. But I convinced myself and took one day at a time. I lost almost 30 kgs and got my body fat down to a remarkable 9.6 percent. The credit goes to my trainers and doctors who always kept a tab on me and motivated me.”
During the process, Aamir did get hurt: “I had six to seven injuries. But, this didn’t affect my shoot. The only time it affected it was when I hurt my back. I was advised two months’ bed rest and didn’t have that much time. So I took painkiller injections in the morning everyday.”
(Sourced from agencies, feature image courtesy:filmibeat.com)
