Mumbai: Priyanka Chopra is one of the finest Bollywood actresses, yet filmmaker Anurag Basu was hesitant to sign her for ‘Barfi’.
Yes, you read it right. Anurag was not at all confident that Priyanka could deliver the role of an autistic girl.
In an interview to film critic Anupama Chopra, Priyanka had revealed Anurag thought he had made a mistake by casting her for ‘Barfi’.
“I don’t know if this can happen, I think I’ll go. I think I made a mistake. I think I should cast a real autistic girl only. This is a stupid idea. How can I expect Priyanka Chopra to do this, look at you,” Anurag told Priyanka when he met her for the script narration.
However, Priyanka wanted to take up the challenge and requested Anurag to organize a workshop for her.
“We did a four-day workshop. I spent a lot of time with autistic children, did a lot of research and reading. There is such a range of autism, we had no reference for Jhilmil. First, we decided the pyjamas because autistic people are like kids,” said the actress.
The actress further revealed that she and her co-star Ranbir Kapoor had to create their characters from scratch as there was no point of reference.
As it turned out, even sans dialogues, Priyanka and Ranbir played their characters like pros.
