How playing Alauddin Khilji in Padmavati negatively affected Ranveer Singh

 Ranveer Singh had to visit the psychiatrist often to come out of the evil character.

Ranveer Singh is known to really get into his characters. We last saw him give his best for ‘Bajirao Mastani’, and he been putting in a lot of effort for his role of Alauddin Khilji in ‘Padmavati’.

We have now come to know that while Ranveer Singh was preparing for Alauddin Khilji’s role, he took the same route as he did to play Peshwa Bajirao. He locked himself up in his apartment, prepped and stayed in the headspace for weeks. “Getting out of this dark, intimidating mindset wasn’t easy for him. The film has also been shot for almost a year now, so sustaining the Khilji persona was very challenging. It affected his reactions and behaviour towards people. Which is why his friends advised him to get help in emerging beyond Khilji. He is going to a psychiatrist to get rid of the Khilji influences.” said a source close to the actor.

Turns out, to play Alauddin Khilji, a menacing, cruel anti-hero in Sanjay Bhansali’s ‘Padmavati’, Ranveer explored such hidden depths of negativity that he has actually had to see a psychiatrist to get back to ‘normal’.

It’s not surprising that he has gone to a negative extreme for this challenging and iconic part in his mentor Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s film. In preparation for the ‘Bajirao Mastani’ third act, Ranveer had made himself ill to feel the character’s trauma, triggering convulsions. Ranveer had actually blacked out on the film’ sets during the third act (where Bajirao experiences a fatal illness), which saps away his strength, leaving his director Sanjay Leela Bhansali and the entire film’s unit anxious. Witnesses from the set say that his eyes had rolled back, and his veins seemed to be popping out. He had a fit of sorts, which had made the film’s unit so worried that they rushed him to the home of local political dignitary and called for medical help. Three hours later, when Ranveer woke up, he had no memory of all that had happened; he had built such a deep connect with Peshwa Bajirao’s suffering that the trauma actually had an adverse physical reaction on him.

Ranveer has pushed the envelope for ‘Lootera’ too. As the film’s protagonist suffers a gun-shot wound and limps for a long time with this severe injury, Ranveer wanted to experience its searing pain. So he made an eye-popping choice. He chose to staple his sides, and walk with the staples attached to his body to bring authenticity to his character. For nearly 50 percent of the film’s shoot, in faraway mountain locations, Ranveer Singh had the sides of his body stapled and continued to deliver on his character’s tragic journey.