ZERO: This is what Anushka Sharma did to prep for her character, Aafia!

Anushka Sharma is one actress who can go to any extent to get into the skin of her character. The actress who will be seen as Aafia, a scientist with cerebral palsy, talks about her three month training that she went through to understand the nuances of her role.

Talking about it, the actress was quoted saying to a daily, “I understood the challenge that I was going to face as an actor while playing this role. That is what excited me towards the role. If I were able to pull it off, I would have accomplished something. So I wanted to do it the right way and represent this correctly. Anand Sir and Himanshu had already researched a lot with doctors (about this condition) when they came to me with the film and had sketched out my character accordingly. I understood their brief and went with their vision and met with the doctors.”

 She added “I also worked with an occupational therapist and audiologist who helped me understand what physical limitation my character would have and how my condition would impact my speech.”

She further explained, “The difficult part in this was that I had to voluntarily create an involuntary movement that happens to my character because of my condition. While I had to focus on the dialogues, I also had focus on the emotion of the scene, which was difficult. So, in the beginning, I would ask for some extra takes so that I could get it right because I wanted to make sure that I was doing it correctly.”

The talented actress also spent long hours on a wheelchair to get into the skin of Aafia. Talking about it, she said, “With time I started to understand it better- staying on the wheelchair the whole time I was on set and for three months before as I worked with the occupational therapist and audiologist. I did all these to understand the confinements one feels when one has to spend a lifetime on a wheelchair. I think all this practice helped in understanding the condition of the character well and the vision that Anand L Rai had for the role I have tried to do it to the T.”

Directed by Anand L Rai, Zero, starring Anushka Sharma, Shah Rukh Khan and Katrina Kaif, is slated to release on December 21, 2018!

Stick to this space for the latest in Bollywood!