Neena Gupta on Sardar Ka Grandson: Went through 10 rounds to get prosthetics right

Neena Gupta in Sardar Ka Grandson

At 61, Neena Gupta is relishing the opportunities of playing author-backed roles and the creative responsibility they come with. Director Kaashvie Nair's Sardar Ka Grandson sees her at the centre of the plot as Rupinder Kaur aka Sardar, the family matriarch. While etching out the character on paper was a delight for writers Nair and Anuja Chauhan, Gupta says slipping into the role of an 80-year-old was not a cakewalk. Remembering how they zeroed in on her look, complete with wrinkled skin achieved by prosthetics, thick glasses and a beanie, she says, "The team left me astounded by the amount of effort they put in helping me get the perfect look. Sometimes, we went through 10 rounds [of make-up] to get the prosthetics right."

During the filming of the Arjun Kapoor and Rakul Preet Singh-starrer in Mumbai, Patiala and Amritsar, Gupta would religiously arrive on the set two hours before the call time, thus giving the make-up artistes ample time to perfect her on-screen avatar. "They also made sure to experiment with different kinds of materials so that the prosthetics wouldn't hamper my performance. We braced ourselves for long and painful sessions. Hard work and dedication went in to create my look," says the senior actor, who plays grandmother to Kapoor's US-returned Amrik. The Netflix slice-of-life drama revolves around Amrik's efforts to fulfil his grandmother's wish of visiting her ancestral home in Lahore.