Soaring high

Ayushmann Khurrana and Anushka Sharma in a still from Hawaizaada

The notion that it takes the longest to finalise the look of an actress in a film was brought to naught when director Vibhu Puri spent more than two months to determine Ayushmann Khurrana’s look in Hawaizaada. The actor essays the role of scientist and inventor Shivkar Bapuji Talpade, who designed India’s first unmanned airplane. Set in 1895, the director had to rely on only one image of how the scientist looked like.
“We had to do a lot of research since there was only one image of Talpade available. We decided to give the character a new look and make it more real. Normally, we spend lot of time to determine the look of a heroine, But here it was the reverse. Ayushmann had to undergo nine hair trials, with four different make-up artists working on him before we could finalise the look that he would sport in the film. We even had a wig flown down from Poland,” says Puri.
The team also worked on constructing the plane, showing the different phases as it slowly takes shape. “It was a very emotional moment for us when we first designed the plane. There is a lot of nostalgia attached to it. The plane that is shown in the film is not computer-generated, but made of wood, ply, metal and thermocol, weighing 500-800 kilos. The plane had to be pulled and pushed, and there are sequences in which Ayushmann had to sit in the plane and then the plane would move. However, when he would try to sit, the plane would move and behave in a very bizarre manner. And Ayushmann, instead of alighting it, would run away from it! It is a huge plane and the chances of it running over you could not be ruled out. On screen, it may look like everything is in control but while shooting the scenes, it was a different scenario altogether,” says Puri.
Hawaizaada has been shot on sets in Mumbai and on locations in Rajkot at a small town named Gondal. With Anushka Sharma in the female lead, it is slated to release by end of the year.