Daily Times

Bollywood actor Aditi Rao Hydari aka Bibbojaan of Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s ‘Heeramandi: The Diamond Bazaar’ revealed that the veteran filmmaker kept her hungry for a day before shooting an important rousing scene.

In a new interview with a foreign media outlet, Aditi Rao Hydari opened up on the scene of ‘Heeramandi’ which kept her awake before the shooting, revealing it was ‘two mujras’ in the series, despite her formal training of dance.

“I have grown up dancing since I was a little girl, but mujra was a very different form of dancing,” she said. “I had learnt Bharatnatyam, but this was Kathak and it was Kathak through the eyes of Sanjay Leela Bhansali, who is a perfectionist max and also knows a lot. And it was about getting it right and not disappointing him.”

“That really gave me sleepless nights,” she shared.

Hydari further revealed, “The scenes where I had to give rousing speeches, Sanjay sir kept me hungry for a day because these scenes don’t come naturally and I did it very happily because it truly helped me… hangry help!”

“I was really struggling with these scenes and he used to pull my leg, ‘If I will ask her to give me a rousing scene, she will make it look like a shringaar scene’. So he said, ‘Don’t eat’,” she recalled. “I was very happy and thanked him.”

Notably, the eight-episodic launching season of Bhansali’s passion project ‘Heeramandi: The Diamond Bazaar’, which explores the stories of courtesans living in the red-light district of Lahore, during pre-independent India, premiered on streaming giant Netflix earlier this year.

Besides Hydari, the series also stars Richa Chadha, Sharmin Segal, Manisha Koirala, Sonakshi Sinha and Sanjeeda Sheikh in main roles.

The show has been renewed for season 2 on the OTT platform.