Kareena Kapoor

When Kareena had to do a bare-backed shot July 28, 2006

Love scenes in films have always been a point of audience interest. And right now audiences are talking about the love scenes between Ajay Devgan and Kareena Kapoor in Vishal Bharadwaj’s Omkara.

However, according to director Vishal, they were not easy to film. “When we were all set to picturise the scene, all of us felt pretty awkward,” he says. “After all, Kareena was the youngest member of the team…”

“Kareena had to do a bare-backed shot. Now, it’s relatively easy for a man to take off his clothes. But for an actress it becomes very uncomfortable unless she’s made to feel at home,” he continues. “So I found a way out. I rehearsed the love scenes with Ajay and Kareena with their clothes on. That not only made them comfortable with each other, it also made the whole exercise more technical and cinematic. I had read this technique in a book on cinema. Actors should always rehearse love scenes with their clothes on.”

Gulzar had once said that the two actors’ physicality should be forgotten in a good love scene. Vishal agrees completely. “That’s precisely what we tried to do,” he says. “And Kareena supported me completely. Obviously she hadn’t done a bare-backed lovemaking scene before. But she trusted me. She was nervous, of course.”

However, according to Vishal, after the first shot Kareena got up, wore her gown and went straight to the monitor. And exclaimed, “My God! This looks like a painting in motion! Let’s do more.”

Apparently, when Kareena says she wants to do more, she really means it. “Her commitment is great,” says Vishal. “Just the other day, after the final prints came I thought some of her dialogues weren’t right. So I called her in the evening. She left everything, drove down all the way from town just to dub those two lines. And then she said, ‘If you need me tomorrow morning just call. Don’t be embarrassed.’ If I didn’t get this kind of commitment from my actors it wouldn’t have been possible for me to make Omkara.”