SINGAPORE – Bollywood stalwart Anil Kapoor came face to face with his wax doppelganger on Thursday (April 20) at Madame Tussauds Singapore.
The figure depicting his game show host character in the 2008 Oscar-winning movie Slumdog Millionaire is the 60-year-old actor’s first wax tribute after more than three decades in the business.
Kapoor is best known for his role in 1987 Hindi film Mr India and went on to star opposite Tom Cruise in Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol (2012) as well as play a president on the drama series 24. He said: “In your first decade, you take it for granted.
In the second decade, you don’t really cherish it. But in the fourth decade of my career, for something like this to happen, I appreciate it much more.”
The figure is part of the new IIFA Awards Experience exhibition in the wax museum.
The International Indian Film Academy Awards is an annual awards ceremony honouring the Indian film industry. Just like the stars at the awards ceremony, patrons will get to walk down a green carpet as paparazzi flashbulbs go off.
The exhibition also features the wax figures of iconic Bollywood actors such as Shah Rukh Khan, Aishwarya Rai and Amitabh Bachchan.
Kapoor said the sittings to capture his likeness took place last year and he described the sessions as “taxing”. “You need a lot of patience and concentration,” he added.
While the Slumdog game show host is not necessarily his most iconic role, he told The Straits Times that the devilishly charming but villainous character was “very layered and real, and that’s what people connected to”.
“We’re not all heroes in real life – we have our dark sides, ambition, greed for power and selfishness. All these things made this character much more exciting for me to play,” he said.
At the unveiling, the charismatic Kapoor also gamely danced along to the song Jai Ho from Slumdog Millionaire, pulling in people from the crowd.
A section in the exhibition uses augmented reality to allow visitors to dance to a Bollywood song with their own set of backup dancers, and see themselves on a large projection screen.
This article was first published on Apr 20, 2017.
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