Heeramandi technicians thanked Shekhar Suman for nailing unscripted oral sex scene in one take, otherwise Sanjay Leela Bhansali would have 'gone on and on'

In the scene, Shekhar's nawab character is drunk out of his mind, travelling in a carriage with Manisha Koirala's Mallikajaan. He proceeds to make moves on her, but is too drunk to to notice where she's sitting. The nawab begins humping thin air, with his back turned to Mallikajaan. In a chat with Zoom Entertainment, Shekhar said that the scene wasn't scripted, and that Bhansali first sought his opinion and permission. He also said that the scene could've easily slipped into broad comedy, but as an actor, he tried to bring out the character's pathos.

Also read - Heeramandi: Sanjay Leela Bhansali outdoes Padmaavat climax with the most offensive scene of his career, continues glamourising the suffering of women

He said, "I went with all my preparation, having learned my lines. Just before the scene was supposed to begin, he called me over and said, 'I have thought of a bizarre interpretation of this, are you open to it?' And he completely turned it around. It was something that nobody had thought of, the ADs were like this (Shekhar mimicked a stunned expression). He's constantly thinking. The scene is about a nawab who is peeing out of a carriage, and in his state of inebriation is trying to make out with Mallikajaan. Bhansali wanted the nawab to turn around, and get fellatio mid-air, thinking that Mallikajaan is sitting on that side. And he's convinced. It was a strange interpretation, and it hasn't been done by anybody before, somebody having sex mid-air. He said, 'I'm fine if you say no, if you find it too bizarre'."

But Shekhar leapt at the opportunity to do something unusual. He continued, "I said, 'In this life, nothing is too bizarre, I'll do it'. And it was done, first take. Now, a drunken scene is difficult to perform, because you are either over or under. You can start hamming majestically. But somehow, I understood the tonality of it, the gravitas of it. The scene also brings out the pathos of this nawab, a rich man who is behaving in such an (undignified way). So, I did it instinctively, and he came running and said, 'Magnificent'. And it was pack-up after that. All the technicians came over and said, 'Sir, thank you, otherwise this would've gone on and on'. He's a stickler. If an actor hadn't caught the 'sur', it would've been another seven hours."

He said that normally, an actor would arrive on set and have a conversation with the director about the scenes lined up for the day. But in Bhansali's case, his assistants were the ones who explained the scenes to him in the morning in his trailer, and his first interaction with Bhansali happened on set. "There was minimal interaction," he said, adding, "There was a respect for each other, and he knows I was coming from and the experience that I had. He knew I wouldn't need that kind of prodding, and that I would understand." Heeramandi was released on May 1 to mixed reviews.

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