Lara Dutta has shared her story of a life-threatening incident on a film shoot that changed her perspective forever. Before she started doing underwater action in Blue, the actress had almost drowned on the sets of Andaaz. The incident had obviously frightened her, but it also made her learn swimming and go back to water on her own terms.
The mishap occurred during a dance sequence for the film Andaaz. A wave carried Lara and her co-star Akshay Kumar into the water. The situation soon became precarious for Lara because she could not swim. She revealed in a recent interview, “I went underwater, wearing leather, didn’t know how to swim, sank like a rock.” The heavy costumes made the situation worse for her.
Akshay Kumar, already in the water at this time, immediately jumped into action and pulled her out of the water. The result of this was that Lara collapsed from hypothermia (a condition where your core body temperature drops). The production immediately stopped filming and she was taken to a local hospital.
That fear surfaced again years later when Akshay suggested her for Blue, an ambitious project about life underwater, directed by Anthony D'Souza. Lara's instinctive reaction was to decline the offer. She also told Akshay Kumar that she could not do it. Akshay's advice to her was simple: learn swimming.
“At 30, he asked me to learn diving. I said mai hi pagal mili hu,” she said, remembering her Andaaz incident. Yet Lara took up the challenge. She learned to swim and dive at the age of 30, overcoming the fear. The shoot of Blue also had its own risks. The movie demanded a lot of scenes in the ocean, along with scenes involving sharks. Even Akshay faced some risk during the shoot of the film. It has been said that he hit his head on a sunken ship 150 feet deep in the sea and was even bleeding in shark-infested waters before returning safely.
Although Blue, which also starred Sanjay Dutt and Zayed Khan, did not fare well at the box office, it was a personal triumph for Lara Dutta. It was not just any film, but one which proved to her that she could overcome one of her biggest phobias.
For more updates, join/follow our WhatsApp, Telegram and YouTube channels.