In Vishal Bhardwaj’s ‘Saat Khoon Maaf’, Priyanka Chopra essays various characters, ranging from a young twenty something girl to a sixty-years old lady. Buzz has it that Hollywood make-up artists diligently worked on Priyanka’s character Suzanna (a sixty-five year old lady), which was modelled on her mother and grandmother’s pictures.
Apparently, Priyanka considers ‘Saat Khoon Maaf’ as her toughest film. Talking to a daily about the film, the actress quipped, “It has been the most challenging part any actor could play. Playing Suzanna was tough for someone like me, who is still in her 20s. During most bits of shooting, I relied completely on Vishal sir, because I had no clue how I was going to take my character forward.”
When enquired about her middle-aged character in the film, Priyanka said, “It was difficult to imagine myself as a 50 year-old woman. How does someone that old walk, talk? I decided to fashion my character on my mother. Not that she is a killer!”
Bhardwaj’s ‘Saat Khoon Maaf’ is based on Ruskin Bond’s ‘Susanna’s Seven’ story, where a femme fatale kills her seven husbands.
Elaborating about Suzanna’s portrayal, Priyanka said, “When we did our research, we learnt that Indian women don`t age that fast. The make-up artists arrived from Drag Studio, the firm that worked on ‘Benjamin Button’ and ‘Lord of the Rings’. The artists took snaps of my mom, bua, and my grandmom to see how women in my family have aged. And they designed my look accordingly.”
Well, translating Priyanka’s family aging process wasn’t that easy for the makeup artists as the actress added, “We made the make-up artists` life hell since our call time would be 2 am! I would sleep by 7 in the evening, get up by 1.30 am, and by 2 am, I would be ready on the make-up chair. It would take five hours for my make-up to be done. Finally, I`d start shooting at 7 in the morning. By the time they were done working on the film, the make-up artists were like zombies.”
