How bald looks of 'Bala' & 'Housefull 4' came out of one Mumbai studio

Akshay Kumar, Ayushmann Khurrana and Sunny Singh created a buzz around ir films with ir bald looks, but far removed from spotlight was make-up artiste Preetisheel Singh, whose months of quiet perseverance let men make all ise. three actors featured as bald men in "Housefull 4", "Bala" and "Ujda Chaman", respectively, with all films timed for back-to-back release. Preetisheel, along with her team, created all three looks at her work, Da Make Lab in Versova suburbs here. 

"re was a time, everywhere I looked, re was 'Bala', 'Ujda Chaman', 'Housefull 4' and controversies related to m. It was crazy, how all se bald men characters came toger," Preetisheel told PTI in an interview. Ayushmann's first look from "Bala" was released in August with a teaser, generating anticipation among audience. A month later, trailer of Abhishek Pathak's "Ujda Chaman" came out. But similarities between three finally took a form when Akshay dropped his song, also titled "Bala"- showing him as a bald man - from "Housefull 4" early last month.

Comparisons between "Bala" and "Ujda Chaman" were stronger, to point that audience even questioned who copied whom, considering both films showed ir leading men struggling with premature baldness. For National Award winning make-up artiste, however, similarities between two stopped at use of "bald cap", as both characters were different. 

"Ayushmann is different from how Sunny looks. That creates a barrier. From my side I try to give looks as different as possible. If two people are losing hair, a bald cap has to be applied, re are two ways about it. But after reading a script, small characteristics of a person matter to me. Like which region does he come from - rth or south, what kind of job he has and his family background. se factors help me build a character, t just saying 'I will just put a bald cap and a wig'."

Least bored about impending comparisons, Preetisheel had different sets of challenges with each film. In "Housefull 4", which she was offered first, task was to complete bald cap for Akshay in less than 30 minutes. process usually takes two hours. "To do a full-fledged bald cap, with colouring, merging, we take one-and-a-half to two hours. Whatever I could pre-colour, I did, n I got extra people on team. We kept a lot of things ready." brief for role was - a man gets a 'mundan' (tonsure) but hair never grows back - where his baldness was a tool to generate humour.

"So his bald look is totally clean, with hair. Since makers wanted to show his torious side, I added a Raavan moustache and completed look," she added. "Bala", on or hand, was aimed as a sensitive take on a man grappling with hair loss, so Preetisheel's work was far more extensive this time. "Ayushmann's character is from lower middle class, a guy who sells fairness cream. When you have fuller hair, your body confidence is more, but when you have lost your hair, you are wearing a cap, your confidence gets low. We thought of giving him a clean shaven look too, because his character isn't flamboyant."

artiste did a look test over a period of three days with Ayushmann, applying a bald cap and trying several wigs with prostic process taking two hours. "re are certain things you have to keep in mind for production costs. For Akshay, y could afford any number of people on set. For a budgeted film, number of people working on it changes. For example, re would be three artistes working, one would be wig person and or two for bald caps."

Preetisheel took least amount of time to prepare for bald look for "Ujda Chaman" despite t reading script. "I usually read scripts before beginning my work. But for this one, we were approached last minute. We were told y need a bald look. brief was same, a guy who is losing hair. n I designed look, which was pretty much bang on in first trial itself. After two three days y began shoot."

Asked how she mand to create look without reading script, Preetisheel said, "After years of practice, you kw what to give when someone asks for a look." Prior to se three films, Da Makeup Club also worked on this year's "Gone Kesh", which featured a bald female lead in actor Shweta Tripathi. 

Her filmography with credits including designing Ranveer Singh's menacing Khilji in "Padmaavat", Amitabh Bachchan's endearing look in "102 t Out" and recent success, "Bigil" contains a clue which perhaps foretold what 2019 would look like for her. "On 'Bajirao Mastani', I used to put bald caps for everyone. Only Ranveer had shaved off his head. But for Milind Soman, Aditya Pancholi, Ranveer's kids and his younger bror in film, every morning I used to go from one vanity van to or carrying ir bald caps. So maybe this was meant to be," she added.