When Emraan overtrained to bulk up for his new cop avatar!
Remember Awarapan (2007), Once Upon A Time in Mumbaai (OUATIM) (2010) or Baadhshaho (2017)? Till date, Emraan Hashmi played an outlaw in a number of his films. But we have learnt that now, the actor will be seen in a new avatar — he will sport the police uniform for the first time, in Mumbai Saga.
Interestingly though, sources close to Emraan maintain that he finds his new cop avatar as “driven as Shoaib was” [from OUATIM]. “In that film, Shoaib’s drive was to earn money and be powerful, whereas Emraan’s character in Mumbai Saga is all about taking on criminals. So, though he is on different sides of the law in both the films, he finds the germ very similar,” says the source.
Apparently, the actor had first met the Mumbai Saga director, Sanjay Gupta, around two months back. “When Sanjay offered him the cop’s part, Emraan knew he had to bulk up in order to look convincing in front of a guy like John Abraham, who’s extremely well built,” says the source. But it wasn’t easy for Emraan to put on so much weight in such a short span (within about a month-and-ahalf) as he has had a smaller frame for some time now.
Immediately, after his meeting with Gupta, Emraan travelled to Mauritius to shoot for Ezra (remake of the 2017 Malayalam film), and that’s when he decided to work on his physique with a trainer. “And Emraan’s clear instruction to him was, ‘I need to bulk up quickly’. Since there wasn’t much time, he used to work out twice a day. By the end of it, he ended up feeling overtrained. He couldn’t sleep for two days before he was to start shooting,” says the insider. Interestingly, Gupta says that Emraan “went from medium size to XL” within a month-and-a-half.