MUMBAI: Bollywood actor Ranveer Singh walks the extra mile to ace his characters. He reported locked himself up for 21 days, with no contact to the outside world for Padmaavat.

In a past conversation, the actor opened up about stapling the sides of his stomach to make the pain feel real for a scene in Lootera.

He told film critic Anupama Chopra that this was true and that his inexperience made him do it. He even added that he wouldn’t think about doing such a thing again in the future.

He said, “At that time I was very raw as an actor, exploring my craft. I wasn’t comfortable with my craft. I didn’t know how to do it. I was so raw that I didn’t know the ABC of filmmaking. Even when I was an AD, I used to be given menial jobs, I would be far away from the sets. So I hit the ground running.”

Talking about the scene in the Sonakshi Sinha co-starrer, Ranveer said, “I didn’t know at that time when I was making that choice for Lootera. You operate from a place where you are not comfortable with your craft, a place of insecurity and nervousness and you tend to do a lot more to achieve a certain effect… sometimes to the degree of harming yourself. I wouldn’t do it now as I know that there is more efficient way of doing it.”

He continued, “Back then, I am thinking to myself: ‘I have never been shot, now I am going to get shot. So how am I going to depict a real sort of pain on screen?’ Now when I look back on Lootera, I watch the scenes like this (leans back and make an expression of discomfort) because it takes me back to a memory of an immense amount of physical pain. It’s all real. But today, having acquired more knowledge and comfort with my craft, I know that there is another way of creating that effect.”

Credits: Koimoi