It’s not just Aamir Khan who will physically push his body to any length to get into character for a role, there’s Bollywood’s old warhorse, Anil Kapoor, too. The actor, who just revealed his salt-and-pepper look for Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra’s musical Fanney Khan, is said to be on a ‘no sugar and salt’ diet to appear lean and haggard in the film. Anil, who is 60, plays a struggling musician in Fanney Khan. The jhakkaas actor knows that down-and-out sexagenarian artistes don’t have his flamboyant personality. So Anil got into character with the salt-and-pepper look and a challenging diet. He had to adopt the diet to lose weight because the actor, who is one of Bollywood’s fittest, is nursing an ankle injury and could not shed the kilos the traditional way in the gym.

Last time Anil played with his hair, he got himself a funky new “undercut” for Mubarakan. “Life is too short to have boring hair, I’m trying a new look from my bucket list,” he tweeted while posting a picture on social media. His family was horrified. Daughters Sonam and Rhea freaked. Wife Sunita hated it and kicked him out of the bedroom! “Where will I sleep?” Anil protested. “I don’t know,” Sunita is reported to have icily replied, “but you’re not entering our bedroom like that!” Mubarakan director Anees Bazmee then regretfully informed Anil that he plays a Sardar in the film and would be wearing a turban. The undercut would be hidden. But the Twitterati loved his new look and Anil was flooded with rave reviews on social media. Among them was the feedback that his new haircut made Anil look like the English actor Paul Anderson.

The year before that, for Zoya Akhtar’s Dil Dhadakne Do, Anil first sported this salt-and-pepper look. He also wore pin stripes. And somebody told him then that he looked like Hollywood heartthrob George Clooney! The actor disagreed. “I look jhakkaas,” he had said. Jhakkaas being his copyrighted definition of perfection on the silver screen. As for hitting the gym, he once beat this correspondent in a race up two flights of stairs at the Taj Land’s End to a scrambled eggs and multi-grain toast breakfast, saying, “When your hands are full, you don’t need to work on fitness.”

Later over coffee, he revealed the secret of his youthful looks and boundless energy was his work and workouts. “The fascinating part of this profession is that it keeps you young and energetic,” Anil said, “but I also have a good time, I party and binge, I don’t lead a disciplined life. And, yes, I workout like mad too, six days a week. I do weights, cardio, yoga, anything that makes me feel fresh and fit. I swim, cycle, play a different sport each day. Actors should realize that people are paying to see them. If they don’t perform well, it can’t be helped, but they must look good on screen.”