John Abraham plays a geek

The actor slouches and shuffles his way through Jhootha Hi Sahi and will even be seen sporting a paunch.

MUMBAI: John Abraham is set to surprise his fans with his new avatar. Forget the itsy-bitsy swimming trunks from Dostana, the actor actually slouches and shuffles his way through Jhootha Hi Sahi and will even be seen sporting a paunch.

The film is directed by Abbas Tyrewala and Abraham says his look in the film is “very different and not something anyone has seen me in before”.

“From a Greek to a geek, long journey I think,” said Abraham.

“This is a side to John that no one has seen. He’s painfully ordinary in speech, body language and clothes. He wears thick glasses and can’t look straight into anyone’s eyes,” said Tyrewala.

The clothes for Abraham’s character were bought off the rack from departmental stores.

“Yup, no designer clothes for John in Jhootha Hi Sahi. We shopped for his clothes in retail outlets, actually purchased working class labels like Arrow and Raymonds,” said the director.

Naturally, stripping for the camera would seem like the last thing on the character’s mind. But hang on! John’s nerdy character does take off his clothes in Jhootha Hi Sahi.

“And when he does strip, boy does it come as a shock,” laughed the director. When John disrobes, fans would be shocked to see a little paunch.

“John wanted to put on a lot more weight. I decided against overdoing it. Those who are used to seeing his chiselled body would be shocked by the absence of contours when he strips,” said Tyrewala.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 20^th, 2010.