One of the most stunning things about Shah Rukh Khan's new film, the Maneesh Sharma-directed Fan is how the actor has managed to look dramatically different as Gaurav, a somewhat distorted version of SRK's Aryan Khanna.
In a new video released by the film's producers, Yash Raj Films, one gets a glimpse into the meticulous process that the team went through to get the correct look for the character. The makers were told by the VFX team that it is impossible to make a character look younger with prosthetics, and that they can only make someone look older.
However, the team at Red Chillies, Khan's production house, persisted with their research, experimenting with different strategies in a bid to come up with a drastically younger-looking SRK. But it was when the producers hired the services of special make-up effects artist Greg Cannom that there was a breakthrough.
Brad is a really good-looking guy but he has unusual facial features. I tried his cheeks [from Benjamin Button] for Gaurav and that really worked for the look…
Cannom, whose credentials include doing the make-up for Brad Pitt for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, borrowed the facial features from the model for Pitt that he'd worked on, and that clicked. "Brad is a really good-looking guy but he has unusual facial features. I tried his cheeks for Gaurav and that really worked for the look," Cannom says in the video.
After cracking the look, the challenge was to apply the prosthetics—it took almost four-five hours every day for the team to make Khan look like Gaurav. "I have never done this in my life," Khan says. "I have never really sat on one place for that long and I hated it. But I had promised myself that I won't get angry."
The superstar was also adamant that if there was going to be an SRK lookalike, he had to have dimples. Cannom had no option but to comply.
Watch the video below to see the full transition of Shah Rukh Khan into Gaurav.
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