Taapsee Pannu recalls the seven times she got slapped in 'Thappad'

Taapsee Pannu is ready to grace the silver screen yet again with a thought-provoking new film, Thappad. In the Anubhav Sinha directional, the issues surrounding domestic violence have been highlighted. 

In the film, Taapsee plays the role of a woman (Amrita) who refuses to continue living with her husband after he slaps her across the face.

During an interview with News18, Taapsee revealed that Pavail [her co-star] was so extremely “anxious and terrified” at the thought of slapping her, it took him almost two days to mentally prepare himself for the role.

She stated, “I was being smacked all over multiple times to get the right shot. In the motion picture it’s just one, however, Pavail was apprehensive to the point that we finished the shot in 7 retakes. I think in my entire film, I had not given such a significant number of retakes. It was distinctly for this shot I needed to give such huge numbers of retakes.”

“We were specific to take care of business. Since it was a significant shot and we couldn’t undermine it. Anubhav said that the slapping shot must be exact, so when the audience sees it on 60 mm, it should look impactful. However, Pavail was terrified to the point that it took him 2 days to set himself up intellectually to slap me,” she added.

“Truth be told; he was advising me to slap him so that he doesn’t feel awful in doing the shot of Thappad. Sometimes he would end up hitting me on my neck, sometimes ears. I had to tell him that don’t think anything, simply give me a tight slap and finish it off.”

Taapsee began to feel “claustrophobic” in the end as she said “It was tough for me to get out of my firebrand image and mind space and get into the skin of this character.”