His acting prowess, stunts, the way he looks and carries himself, everything about him is jhakaas. At 58, Anil Kapoor’s secret to looking fit and younger each year is his healthy lifestyle. The actor who started his acting career with in late 70s with Umesh Mehra’s Hamare Tumhare, tells you that back then there was not much emphasis on body building.
“When I started my career, there was not much awareness of being physically fit. Actors like Dara Singh and Dharmendra were considered fitness freaks. Other actors were not completely fit. A decade later, Sunny Deol and Sanjay Dutt came into the limelight and were considered fit as they were into body building and weights,” Kapoor who was in the Capital recently for the inauguration of Kris Gethin’s book The Transformer, says
For Kapoor, it was 1942 A love Story that brought a big transformation in his life. “When Vidhu Vinod Chopra approached me for this movie, I asked him, ‘do you think I can do a love storyIJ I am a father of three children. Why don’t you cast someone younger like Bobby Deol and Aamir KhanIJ’ Bobby had been launched by Deols and was not interested; Aamir was busy. Also Vinod was very keen that I should play the lead. So I said yes. I had to romance a girl half my age, Manisha Koirala. Earlier for me, my health and physicality was about my roles and profession. But it was then that I started looking after myself and exercising so that I could look younger,” Kapoor recalls.
Because of the lack of professional bodybuilders, Kapoor started to train by learning and educating himself. “I was not aware how weight exercises worked on the body and what was the right way to develop the perfect body structure. When I did lamhe, I played an older person who was double of Sridevi’s age in the second half. In the first half, I was to play a role of a young boy and Sridevi a few years older to me. To showcase the transformation on the big screen, I started working on myself and would jog, diet and do other exercises. There was nobody to tell me which workout would suit me and how to do it. It was all about self-learning and self-educating,” Kapoor tells you.
All the exercising had its effect on Kapoor and it soon became a habit and a great stress buster. “Exercising makes me feel good. We owe to our body and taking out an hour a day to workout makes you feel great about yourself and you will be in a positive frame of mind for the rest of the day. Eating healthy food, working out for an hour and having a good sleep has become my lifestyle. There are times when I don’t do weights and just go for a brisk walk or don’t go for swim but do power yoga. These are a few things which work as my stress busters,” Kapoor says.
It was Gethin who brought the transformation in Bollywood by training Hrithik Roshan, John Abraham and other celebs. “The transformation in Bollywood started when Gethin trained Hrithik Roshan for Krrish. He has transformed not just the bodies but also the minds of so many actors. The trend of body building and six pack abs became a rage,” Kapoor says, who is also busy with 24 Season 2.
Now, it is his son Harshvardhan who is transforming himself and getting ready for his Bollywood debut.
“I’m very grateful to Gethin for bringing the change in my son’s physical appearance who is going to make his acting debut in Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra’s Mirzya.
He was lean and skinny but now looks much better. I feel it’s very easy for a fat man to lose all the fat and look muscular. But for a very skinny person to first gain weight and then build his body, it is much tougher,” Kapoor says.