I suffered from excruciating pain: Shabana Azmi

Shabana Azmi, who had put on 30 pounds to get into the skin of her character in Gurinder Chadha’s It’s a Wonderful Afterlife, says that she had risked her life in pushing her body to the edge at a sensitive age of 58 and that her doctors have now restricted her to a no-oil diet so that she could lose fat quickly.

“I’m realising now that I did not do a very smart thing by deciding to put on weight at my age. I did it (put on kilos) in a rather cavalier manner too. Having done it before for Mandi, I had forgotten that it was something I challenged my body with 30 odd years ago. This time it has impacted my health and my doctors are very upset with me. My cholesterol levels have shot up alarmingly and I have to work doubly hard to reduce my weight. I was so fat that I couldn’t tie my shoelaces,” says the veteran character actor who has lost 5 pounds post the film’s wrap up.

However, she defends her actions saying: “The thing is that Gurinder couldn’t have done with padding because I have a very slim face. I had to put on weight all over or else it would have looked fake and I didn’t want that.”

But Shabana’s body went through hell during shooting. “I have a very bad back and putting on weight damaged it further. I was suffering from excruciating pain and constantly went to the doctor who asked me lose weight immediately but there was nothing I could do before the shooting ended,” Shabana says, adding that she was careless to have stopped taking her medicines too.

“I was living all alone in London. With no one to hand me my medicines, I became careless and stopped taking them. This aggravated the situation.”