When Abhishek was suspended mid-air for 20 hours

When Abhishek Bachchan signed up to work on PLAYERS, he knew that this was going to be an out and out action experience. However, never had the actor thought in his wildest imagination that he would end up finding himself suspended mid-air for over 20 hours to film a sequence that would last for a mere 10 minutes in the final cut of the film.

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Laughs Abhishek, "There is a sequence in the film where two trains are running on parallel tracks and some terrific action unfolds there. Now Abbas-Mustan had a certain vision to bring this sequence on screen and for that they had an eight camera set up. Idea was to shoot the sequence with each of these cameras placed at a strategic location and then edit the scene in such a manner that it brings a terrific all around effect on screen. But, the only trouble was that I was in the centre of these camera placements. To fulfill Abbas-Mustan's vision, I was suspended in air for hours at stretch."


Resultantly, Abbas-Mustan got what they were looking for with close to 40 hours of software being made available, courtesy a parallel camera set up. For at least half this duration, Abhishek was attached to all the cables that suspended him over the trains.

"Can you believe that? I did wonder how the final result would turn out to be but Abbas-Mustan just asked me to wait and watch while Hussain Burmawala (the film's editor) weaved his magic. He took this 40 hour long footage and cut the entire sequence in such a manner that today it is standing out for its sheer grandeur, style, technique and spell binding visuals. Oh yes, I did get immensely tired during the filming of this sequence but as the saying goes, the wait was indeed worth it," said Abhishek on a parting note.