Prince-in-waiting

STYLE FILE
My personal style is an extension of how I feel on that particular day. When I wear a suit,I feel very polished. When I’m in a kurta pyjama,I’m on a spiritual plane and with jeans and tee I am all chilled out. For Prince,I was styled by Narendra Kumar and Provogue Design Studio,who created a whole new sense of style. We did a number of shoots with the clothes. The clothes had to be shooting-friendly because of the kind of stunts I did.

PRACTICE MAKES PERFECT
Although I have done my own stunts in the past,they were not as intense as the ones in Prince. People complete a movie in three months but I had to undergo five months of training. Every morning,I hit the roads on a skateboard holding onto my skateboarding instructor’s 100CC Yamaha. Holding on to a bike in one hand and a fake gun in the other,I went about like a mad man passing through PVR in Juhu. And I learnt to dodge the dogs and the potholes. This is what probably saved my life when I was doing it live in Durban.

ACTION-PACKED
I shed 12 kilos by eating boiled vegetables. I had to be lighter to do certain stunts. I learnt stunt biking from an Australian coach. The scene,where I had to jump the bike off a ramp from the 32nd floor of one building to the 28th floor of the other with a 60-foot road in between,was probably the toughest and most exciting stunt. There were others like fighting in an upside down SUVs.

GIRL FRIENDS
I had a lot of fun with the girls—Nandana (Sen),Neeru (Singh) and especially Aruna (Shields). Aruna is a hottie. She is a model from the UK but she is fun to hang out with. I taught her all sorts of things in Hindi. She wanted to ask a spot boy if he had breakfast. I translated it as “Kya aapne kachcha pehna hai ki nahin?”. She then asked him sweetly,and he was embarrassed.

KISSES AND MISSES
I had to do a kissing scene with Aruna which was a prelude to a major action sequence. It was really awkward because there were 350 people around us,two choppers flying above us and eight cameras pointed at us. And then the director screaming into the mic: “Now Sir,pull her close to you,closer and kiss her passionately sir. Now Sir,move apart,we need to capture the sun’s rays. Now closer again,now kiss the girl from left to right,now right to left.” It was weird. After the scene,Aruna comes and tells me “By the way Vivek,you are a really good kisser. Should I give you a certificate?” I told her to shut up.

BIKER CHIC
I bought my Ducati a while back and I have been in love with it. I have now sent it to Bangalore to supercharge it,because I was greedy for more speed.

PET,SET,GO
I love my boxers Sir Duke and Lady Ivy. They are royalty. They are our owners and we are their servants. I groom them,feed them,speak to them and brush their teeth. I will be taking them along with me to Delhi for my next Kingdom of Dreams. They are like my children. I watch movies with them. Duke doesn’t like violent movies,Ivy loves anything. Duke’s very picky about food and Ivy a cute little glutton. Duke is temperamental. He gives me the royal ignore,if I speak to Ivy first.