Why Did Mahesh Bhupathi Tell Wife Lara Dutta ‘I Don’t Want To Hug You’?

Mumbai: Actress Lara Dutt’s look in her upcoming film ‘BellBottom’ shocked her husband Mahesh Bhupathi. So much so that the former tennis star said he didn’t want to hug her.

“My husband was shocked. He probably felt very unsettled with the look. He was like I don’t want to hug you. You don’t really look like yourself,” Lara said in an interview with Zoom.

The former Miss Universe, who plays former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in the film, underwent a major transformation for the spy thriller. ‘BellBottom’ also stars Akshay Kumar, Vaani Kapoor and Huma Qureshi.

Lara, who went through an elaborate make-up and prosthetic process, also revealed how her daughter Saira reacted on seeing her ‘BellBottom’ look.

“She was intrigued. She saw it come alive in front of her… She came in and she saw whole silicon on my face and said, ‘Mum they are going to kill you, you can’t breathe.’ She was so worried. Ya, but having said that, she was also very intrigued and was like, ‘Can I touch the nose, the eyebrows? Can I do this, that’?” Lara said.

BellBottom, directed by Ranjit M Tewari, is slated for a theatrical release on August 19.

Set in the 1980s, the film has Akshay playing the role of an undercover agent tasked with rescuing 210 hostages from a hijacked plane.

Lara told PTI that she spent three hours in the make-up chair every day.

“The idea was to capture everything correctly and make sure we are as close to the resemblance of Mrs Gandhi as possible. At the end of the day, either I play Indira Gandhi as Lara Dutta or we make Lara Dutta a close resemblance to Indira Gandhi,” said Lara, who looks unrecognizable in the film’s trailer released a few days ago.