Kasab hung again: Shooting sends chills up unit's spine, actor playing Kasab freaks out

Last week when Ram Gopal Varma shot Kasab’s execution for his film The Attacks Of 26/11 Sanjeev Jaiswal, the theatre actor who plays Kasab, was traumatized in a way that is not unknown to method actors. Dilip Kumar while playing Devdas had to consult a psychiatrist. Jaiswal, one hears, was so heavily into his character that, in the words of a crew member, he “lost it completely” when the hanging sequence was being done. Says a source from Ramu’s crew, “Ramu had every detail of the actual hanging in the script. When we shot the sequence it was eerily authentic. All of us felt as though we were at a real execution. It was bloody chilling.” Apparently Ramu took the actor playing Kasab through the motions right up to the execution, so that when the black mask and the rope was slipped on to the actor’s face he simply went berserk. Says the source, “Sanjeev freaked out when the black mask was put on his face. We had an actually hangman’s noose. And Sanjeev Jaiswal who had lived with the character of Kasab right up to the actual execution, went hysterical.” Apparently medical help had to be rushed to the set to calm the actor down. Ramu still shudders at the thought of how much worse the situation could have got. Says Ramu, “Sanjeev Jaiswal who’s playing Kasab is quite a method actor and since he’s been in Kasab’s mindspace for the past one year, I dread to think his emotional state when I was doing the hanging scene with him.” Ramu says Jaiswal got into Kasab’s head but couldn’t come to terms with Kasab’s heinous crime. “In spite of knowing what kind of a guy Kasab was and knowing that he was hanged for the brutal murder of innocent people, it still felt very chilling to prepare for the shooting of the hanging of the reel-life Kasab. I think the authenticity of the sequence got to the aactor.” Ramu took the actor through every detail of the hanging as it must have been when the real Kasab was executed. “I don’t think any film crew has been in such an authentic space before. The sheer detailing of various chores that have to be performed before executing a man was so graphic that the crew members were scared even to be standing near the hatch which would open when the screen-Kasab was executed