Taapsee Pannu says Pavail Gulati slapped her 7 times during Thappad shoot

Bollywood actor Taapsee Pannu, whose Thappad trailer is earning accolades for its take on domestic violence, has revealed she was slapped seven times to get a shot right in the film directed by Anubhav Sinha. Taapsee plays Amrita, a woman who refuses to live with her husband after he slaps her; Pavail Gulati essays the role of her husband.

Talking to News18, Taapsee said Pavail was so “anxious and terrified” he took two days to bring himself to slap her. “I was being smacked all over multiple times to get the right shot. In the motion picture it’s just one, however, Pavail was apprehensive to the point that we finished the shot in 7 retakes. I think in my entire film, I had not given such a significant number of retakes. It was distinctly for this shot I needed to give such huge numbers of retakes. We were specific to take care of business. Since it was a significant shot and we couldn’t undermine it. Anubhav said that the slapping shot must be exact, so when the audience sees it on 60 mm, it should look impactful. However, Pavail was terrified to the point that it took him 2 days to set himself up intellectually to slap me.”

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Asserting that the retakes did not mean Pavail simply slapped her seven times, Taapsee added, “Truth be told, he was advising me to slap him so that he doesn’t feel awful in doing the shot of thappad. Sometimes he would end up hitting me on my neck, sometimes ears. I had to tell him that don’t think anything, simply give me a tight slap and finish it off.”

About her character in the film, Taapsee recently said, “The character Amrita was suffocating for me in the end and I took it as a challenge. After 15 days of shooting, I started feeling claustrophobic. It was tough for me to get out of my firebrand image and mind space and get into the skin of this character.”

The film also features Ratna Pathak Shah, Tanvi Azmi, Dia Mirza, Ram Kapoor and Kumud Mishra among others and is set to hit theatres on February 28.

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