How Mahesh Manjrekar's son Satya helped 'Tubelight' Salman Khan

There is a method to the madness Salman Khan does on screen. Salman used the help of filmmaker-actor Mahesh Manjrekar’s son Satya to get an idea how to play his character Laxman in Tubelight.

The actor plays a simpleton in his next, Tubelight, directed by Kabir Khan. Salman is called tubelight, which a slang term used for someone slow at grasping things. As seen from the trailer, the 51-year-old actor appears to be behaving like a child, as his character demands.

While Salman played an overtly innocent character in Bajrangi Bhaijaan, Tubelight needs him to be a man-child, literally. As part of his prep for the character, the actor sought help of Mahesh Manjrekar’s son Satya.

Speaking to DNA newspaper, Salman said, “This is my most innocent character. When I did the reading of Tubelight, Mahesh’s (Manjrekar) son Satya came to my mind. There is a certain innocence about him. We have corrupted our body language and this is a very simple character, my hands are like that (gestures) and the walk is different. I felt I would not be able to pull it off. So, I asked Mahesh to send Satya, I made him read the character of Laxman Singh Bisht. He read one page, then asked, ‘Sir what is this?’ I said this is one role that I am doing. He said, 'Sir I thought you are making me read because I was going to do it'. I said this is a very sweet simple boy’s character that I am playing and I am not that boy but you are, so I wanted to see you do that.”

Apart form Satya, Salman took inspiration from another young man. "There is a guy called Parvez, he is my body double. He stands in for the long shots, the crowd scenes etc. He is also a very sweet boy. So these two were my inspiration for Tubelight," he mentioned.

Salman also spoke about filming emotional scenes, which he said were emotionally draining, "worse than a break-up".

“In this film even in the dubbing stage my tears were just flowing. On the set too. I’d heard the script, I know the scene before and the scene after, but still.. crying wise it became such a... It messes you up because then without even thinking, tears just keep on coming out. And if you are doing an emotional scene all day, it becomes like a huge...it drains you out. Even when you break up with somebody, you cry for may be 15 minutes, then you are like 'next'."

"Here, 8-10 hours of that long shot, this shot and that shot, trolley shot and then you start crying and a retake is called. Then again because of the sync sound, agar ek kauwa kuch bola, cut it, and start again. So this was like the most tiring film that I have done,” added Salman.

Tubelight is set to be released on 23 June.