Alia Bhatt reveals Pankaj Tripathi prepped her for Udta Punjab; Says she convinced the director to cast her

Alia Bhatt garnered a lot of praise both from the critics and the audience for her amazing performance in the 2016 film Udta Punjab. The film also featured Shahid Kapoor, Kareena Kapoor Khan, and Diljit Dosanjh in the lead roles. It is directed by Abhishek Chaubey, and in the film, Alia essayed the role of Bauria aka Mary Jane, a migrant Bihari girl working in Punjab who is also an ex-hockey player. Now, in an interview with Mid-Day, Alia revealed that Pankaj Tripathi helped her to prepare for the role in Udta Punjab. 

Alia said that Pankaj along with Abhishek Chaubey would sit and work on the dialogues every day. Her character does not speak much in Udta Punjab, but when she spoke, it was the pure Jhat dialect. She said that Pankaj taught her to sit and speak the way the natives do. He also made her do a lot of acting workshops, how to loosen the body, a certain expression which is dead eyes, open mouth. She said that Udta Punjab was the first film she kind of went method on. Alia also revealed that she had to convince Abhishek to cast her in the film.

Recalling the time, she said the script came across when she was shooting with Shahid for Shaandaar and that is when he told her about the script. “I read the script and I was like ‘Wow, what a part’. I was like, ‘listen I want to do this part’. He was like, ‘Okay, I also think it will be quite cool and you should meet Chaubey’. So then I met Chaubey and I had to convince him that I will do it. She said that the director was not sure even after they did a look test. Alia revealed that she really wanted to play the part and to prove to herself and the world that she is a chameleon.

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