“I was left with the potbellied look with all the gyms closed during the first lockdown”- Farhan Akhtar talks about Toofaan

The trailer of Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra’s directorial Toofaan was released earlier today(June 30). Starring Farhan Akhtar as a boxer, it is one of the most anticipated films of the year. The trailer gives us a glimpse of the life of Ajju aka Aziz Ali who goes from being a street fighter to a boxer to an incident that gets him banned from professional boxing for five years. Post the release of the trailer, Farhan Akhtar spoke to a group of journalists about the film.

Farhan spent nearly 8-9 months before the film went on floors to get the physique of a boxer. While he has been appreciated for building an impressive physique, in the trailer we also see him sporting a potbelly. When asked if it was difficult to detach himself from a character on which he spent months working on, Farhan said, “To a certain extent, it was. The reason for that is because we ended shooting roughly about four days before the first lockdown happened. So I was actually just stuck in the character and nobody else to talk to and nothing else to move on to. I was just at home. Now that you have seen the trailer you have seen the potbellied look that I have. So I was left in that look with all gyms closed and nowhere to train and nothing to do. So I had to live with this character way longer than I would have chosen to otherwise. That’s why there was a bit of a hangover. I did get to mourn this character for quite some time because I had to live with him; I didn’t have much of a choice. But given the intensity of the experience itself, I do think that was also natural for that to happen because leading up to the wrap of the film, it was almost a year-and-a-half, if not a little more dedicated just to this one film and this one character. That does take time.”

Further, when asked if he had opted for prosthetics or actual weight gain for the potbellied loo, the actor said, “Neither Rakeysh nor I wanted to take any kind of shortcut for that part of the film. When you are showing the journey of a character then that person goes through the journey of the character at some level to be able to understand it and show it to somebody else. So all the weight gain you see in the film, I have put it on with a lot of effort. I was given 3 months to gain weight, I would eat almost everything. It was only fun in the first week to 10 days and then it became difficult. You realise you don’t need to eat so much.”

Toofaan also stars Mrunal Thakur and Paresh Rawal. Produced by Excel Entertainment, the film will be released on July 16 on Amazon Prime Video.

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