She is Bollywood's very own fashionista. But it seems that the IT girl, Sonam Kapoor, will have to turn her style quotient several notches down to get into character for Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra's Bhaag Milkha Bhaag. And to essay a village girl residing in Punjab during the 1950s also means that the actress will have to do without her gizmos and gadgets. Mehra has asked Sonam to sweat it out without airconditioners and mobile phones and live like the village belle she is supposed to play in the film.
An entire village on the Indo-Pak border, a few kilometres away from Ferozpur is now being transformed, to represent 1930s India by art director Sumit Basu. "We had to travel to the remotest corners of Punjab to find a place that resembles Milkha Singh's birthplace Lyallpur, now in Pakistan," informed filmmaker Mehra.
Having found an authentic location for his film, Rakeysh is now concentrating on keeping his key characters Farhan Akhtar and Sonam Kapoor real.
No cellphones, no computers, no gadgets, not even air-conditioners that's the rule Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra has laid down for the lead actors. "We often tend to think shooting in black-and-white or sepia colours as reflective of period cinema. But that's like drawing attention to rather than recreating the era. I want to merge into the era that we're going into, not stand outside it by drawing attention to it," said Mehra explaining his decision.
"Sonam and Farhan have to feel like they belong to the 1950s, just as I've started feeling. Nowadays when I wake up, I am shocked to feel the chill of the airconditioner in my house. I am gradually cutting myself loose from all the luxuries we take for granted," he added. 🤣
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