Beauty queen Lara Dutta domestic chores

IImagine a popular actress and former beauty queen mopping the floor or stoking fire in a chulha.

That and more actress Lara Dutta had to do for Shahrukh Khan’s home production Billoo Barber in which she plays the wife of a poor village barber, played by Irrfan Khan .

Director Priyadarshan made sure that Lara’s character of a deglam housewife looked as real as possible. Along with his cinematographer, Priyadarshan went to shop for the saris that Lara wears in the film. And he did not pick any designer saris, but plain, cotton, crumpled saris purchased from roadside shops.

On top of it Priyadarshan made Lara go barefoot for her role. She was made to do all the domestic chores that any village housewife does – fetching water from well, washing and cleaning work, cooking food on a chulha, feeding the goats and, not to forget, feeding her husband.

Lara says she hasn’t slogged so harder in her entire life as she did in the 20 days she shot for ‘Billoo Barber’ in Pollachi.

The movie has Shahrukh Khan playing a superstar who comes to shoot in a village where his childhood friend, a poor barber, lives.