Hrithik Roshan, known as a hot bod of Indian showbiz for whom staying away from junk food is a way of life, bent his rules for "Guzaarish". He also performed what he calls his career's toughest dance sequence for the love story
"I didn't workout for six-seven months. After 15 years, I found out the taste of batata vada and samosas. I binged like anything," Hrithik told in an interview.
"I had the liberty to have all the fried stuff because I had to look fat in some parts of the film. But when I was on this toxic programme, health took a very bad shape."
All that hogging had a negative impact on his medical reports.
"For 15 years, I lived such a healthy life with a proper diet and workout. Then suddenly such a major shift, so my medical reports had gone crazy and the doctors were forcing me to stop it. But I enjoyed it because it was an excuse to eat whatever I wanted to," added the 36-year-old actor.
In "Guzaarish", directed by Sanjay Leela Bhansali, Hrithik plays a magician who becomes paraplegic when a trick goes wrong. The film that will also see Aishwarya Rai as a nurse is slated for a Nov 19 release.
This is the first time Hrithik teamed up with Bhansali, known as a short-tempered director, and said there was no shouting or yelling on the set.
"It was fabulous working with Sanjay. I've never had such an experience. In the beginning, people told me that he is slightly mad, he screams, but once I started working with him, it was a different experience.
"May be our equation worked because of the kind of actor I am and the kind of person he is. But there was not even one day that anybody had to be upset or anybody had to raise his or her voice. In fact, people from the crew were surprised that for the first time there is calm and peace on the sets," he added.
Hrithik, known as Bollywood's best dancer who mesmerised his fans with his exotic moves in songslike "Ek pal ka jeena", "Main aisa kyun hoon" and "Idhar chala main udhar chala", says he had to work the hardest for a dance sequence in "Guzaarish".
"There is a dance sequence for which I had to work the hardest in my life. Never worked so hard. For one month I trained for it. It's not a long piece of dance, but the kind of dance it is, it's very tough."
Choreographer Ashley Lobo designed the moves.
"Ashley told me to take a three-time spin and then stand back straight. If you're not used to dance, you can take four-five months to learn it, but I just had one month. All the steps are mostly jazz, ballet kinds. It's a lot about the form, the stance, the spins - it's the toughest thing I've tried," said Hrithik.
"None of my songs, until now, have spins because that's something I'm really bad at. If it's a spin, it's a half spin. This was the first time I tried a full one. It was also difficult because the entire song is with a ball in the hand. I'm playing with the ball and I'm also dancing," he added.