JOIN US“Abhishek did it in one take. He carried his father effortlessly across the vast field. We shot the sequence near Cambridge in England at a place called Bury St Edmunds,” Balki said.
The place was chosen not just for its green acres which facilitated Abhishek’s run with his father on his back, but also to avoid large crowds of gawking Indians. On being asked how he felt to be carried by his own son, the Big B quipped: “Carrying me piggyback was Abhishek’s job. Jaya and I merely produced a strong boy!”
“The most tedious part of playing the 12-year-old boy in ‘Paa’ was the makeup. I had to sit still for four-five hours every morning without moving, eating or even drinking water. For a sunrise shot I had to be up from 11 pm the previous night doing the makeup to be able to shoot on time the next morning,” he added. Expensive make-up and creative inputs by industry stalwarts notwithstanding, Amitabh has managed to produce ‘Paa’ within a set budget of Rs.15 crore.
The movie, about a child suffering from progeria - a rare disease of premature ageing among children, has been produced under Amitabh’s production banner AB Corp.
Discussing the film’s budget, the 67-year-old posted on his blog bigb.bigadda.com: “I think we set out to make this film with certain definite plans. It would not be a penny over the Rs.15 crore budget we had decided upon; indeed it is nominally better than that - it’s Rs.14.75 crore.”
Amitabh plays Auro, a progeria-afflicted child in the movie, while his real life son Abhishek essays the role of his father.
The actor wonders whether producers who project a “modest amount” of Rs.50 crore-60 crore for their films, realise that “films of such high budget dimension need to do twice (more business) and more in returns at gross box office in order to get a net benefit to bring home”.