Undergoing dramatic body transformation was a huge task: Aamir

Aamir Khan says he was aware about the health hazards of gaining and losing weight quickly when he went for an extreme physical transformation for his role as a wrestler in Dangal but decided to go ahead he was taken by the story. 

“I went through body building to get a certain look for my film (Dangal). This one was one of the most dramatic body transformations so far. The film has two phases. For one part, I had to put on weight. So, I weighed 96 kgs with 38 per cent body fat and then I had to reduce to 9 per cent body fat within five months. That was a huge task,” he said.

For the 51-year-old star putting on weight was easy and fun. Aamir says all he did to gain weight was to eat ice cream, chocolates, brownies, samosa, vada etc. But for losing weight, he followed a diet. “I would like to mention that putting on weight and losing it so fast is very unhealthy. I did it for my film under the supervision of experts, but it is very unhealthy for any regular person. Doctors even suggested me not to try such drastic weight and body transformation. But I get excited to do it if I find the story good,” he said.

It’s not the first time that Aamir has worked on his body for a film. He underwent drastic makeovers for Ghajini, 3 Idiots and Dhoom 3. “I was worried about the film and my character and performance. I was not worried about my health... my family was,” he said. His son Azad, however, seemed to love his bulky look. “For him I am papa. He is very small to understand things, he was seeing me become fat. When I was fat he found me cuddly, I was like a bear so he used to hug me,” Aamir said. Playing a wrestler was not easy for himas he suffered a lot of injuries during the film.

“I had a lot of injuries in my back, shoulder, both my elbows and ankles but none of them were serious. The only time it (injury) stopped my work was when I hurt my back while doing a wrestling scene, it was painful,” Aamir said.

“I couldn’t shoot and doctor asked me to rest for two months. I did not have that much time to wait. I told my director, give me two weeks... I will rest. I went to Ludhiana from Mumbai to shoot... doctor gave me a pain killer injection and due to this I couldn’t feel the pain. I took strong pain killer injections,” he said. After working on this biographical drama, Aamir’s perception towards wrestlers has changed.

“I had not much knowledge about wrestlers. I had heard wrestlers don’t have much brain which I think is wrong, they have to be sharp, need to have an explosive speed and be able to understand what your opponent is going to do and react, it’s is all tactics it’s not strength... weightlifting is strength,” he said.