Amitabh Bachchan has won four National Film Awards as Best Actor, one of which was for his remarkable performance in R Balki’s Paa. However, the film almost didn’t happen due to a major challenge: Balki struggled to figure out how to convincingly portray Bachchan as a 12-year-old boy. The look tests for the character, Auro, left Bachchan frustrated as Balki took an unusually long time to finalize the appearance. Balki admitted to being shocked by the initial results, describing them as “scary”.
In a conversation with YouTube channel, Balki recalled the hurdles he faced during the making of Paa. He explained that he had extensively researched progeria—the condition Auro suffers from—and even hired a makeup artist from Los Angeles. Despite this preparation, Balki realized he had overlooked a crucial aspect. After writing the script and finalizing details, he and cinematographer PC Sreeram conducted a look test in Hyderabad, where Bachchan was shooting for another project.
Balki recounted how, as soon as Bachchan appeared on set, he turned to Sreeram and said, “This is scary. What do we do?” Although Sreeram tried to improve the visuals with lighting, the results were far from satisfactory. Balki confessed, “Because he is 6’2 and big, I hadn’t considered that a child can’t be that tall. He could act cute, but we didn’t have the technology or budget at the time to digitally shrink him.”
This oversight left Balki feeling it was a “big blunder.” The constant back-and-forth during the look test began to irritate Bachchan, who asked, “Balki, what is happening? It’s all looking fine.” But Balki candidly replied, “Amit ji, it’s looking f*ckall. It’s so bad, it’s scary.” When Balki showed Bachchan the photos from the test, a tense silence filled the room.
In that moment, Balki considered scrapping the film altogether. He consulted Sreeram, saying, “I think we need to call this film off. This is not going to work. It’s an embarrassment. Let’s not waste any more money.” However, Sreeram refused to give up and continued experimenting. He eventually discovered a solution: shooting Bachchan from a top angle to make him appear smaller. With this breakthrough, the team resumed work on the film, and the rest is history.
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