Shoojit Sircar, in a recent interview, recalled the challenges he facing during Amitabh Bachchan’s look test for Paa.
Amitabh Bachchan left everyone teary-eyed with his heartfelt portrayal of a 12-year-old boy battling progeria in R Balki’s Paa (2009). The drama even bagged him a National Award for Best Actor for his impressive act. However, director Shoojit Sircar had to go through a bunch of hurdles while bringing this memorable character to life on screen.
In a recent interview with Youtube channel Cinemaz, the filmmaker revealed that there was a point where he almost thought of scrapping off Paa because he couldn’t figure out how to shoot and make Amitabh Bachchan look like a 12-year-old on screen.
While speaking about the making of the film, Shoojit said that he had done enough research on progeria and knew what people with this condition looked like. He even found a makeup artiste for this in Los Angeles but added that he was “foolish” and “blind” about the whole thing.
The Vicky Donor director revealed that after he had written Paa and finalised all the details, he and cinematographer PC Sreeram conducted a look test with Sr. Bachchan to see how his character Auro would look like on screen. The look test for Paa took place in Hyderabad while the megastar was working on another film.
Balki said that he expressed concern to cinematographer PC Sreeram when Amitabh arrived on set and told him, “This is scary. What do we do?” Despite his worries, Sreeram was still hopeful and went on to arrange some lights for the shoot. But as soon as the set was lit, Balki told him that Sr. Bachchan looked ‘even uglier than before.’
“Because he is 6’2 and he is big, and I had not thought he is a child. Which child is 6’2? I mean he can act cute and all that but we didn’t have the technology or the money to shrink him in those days. And I had not planned for all that,” Shoojit recalled.
The director said that after one hour of trials, Amitabh Bachchan got irritated and told him, “Balki what is happening, it’s all looking fine.” “I said ‘Amit ji, it’s looking f*ckall, it’s looking so bad, it’s scary,” the filmmaker recalled.
Later, when Balki showed all the pictures to Amitabh Bachchan, the room fell silent. At that moment, the filmmaker even considered scrapping off Paa and shared his concerns with PC Sreeram. However, the cinematographer refused to give up and even on conduct few more trials. Eventually, he discovered a top-angle shot that made Big B appear smaller, and the rest is history.
Paa, upon its theatrical release, received critical acclaim and is considered one of Shoojit’s best works. Besides Amitabh Bachchan, the film also featured Abhishek Bachchan and Vidya Balan who played the role of his estranged parents.
