Since, Kalank is a pre partition drama. Therefore, Alia Bhatt has taken special care with her diction and look for the movie. During preparation for the role, Alia has watched few classic Bollywood movies such as Mughal-e-Aazam and Umrao Jaan and also Pakistani serial called Zindagi Gulzar Hai. It has been recommended to Alia by her director of Kalank Abhishek Varman which stars Kapoor & Sons actor Fawad Khan and Sanam Saeed also.
During an interview, Alia has said “I watched a lot of old films like ‘Mughal-E-Azam’ and ‘Umrao Jaan’ to get an understanding of grace and body language. (And) I had to clean my Hindi as I am speaking Urdu (in the film). Abhishek asked me to watch ‘Zindagi Gulzar Hai’. The character of the girl in the show is very much how Roop will deal with the situation. She has responsibility on her shoulders so she is not always a happy person. She is vulnerable yet strong. It is difficult (to bring so many) layers – unhappy, vulnerable and strong to a character. Abhishek kept saying that I should not be irritating”.
For the first time, Alia has heard the story of Kalank during her debut with the movie Student of the Year in 2012 from Karan Johar. Alia has said, “He had mentioned about the story in passing when we were promoting ‘Student of the Year’. But the story was different at that time. Later, I heard it from Abhishek and he said he was adapting the film in his own way. After many months, I realised Abhishek had written this role keeping me in mind. The process of this film coming to me was very organic”
An ensemble cast will be seen in the movie with Varun Dhawan, Aditya Roy Kapur, Alia Bhatt, Sonakshi Sinha, Madhuri Dixit and Sanjay Dutt. On working with so many actors in Kalank, Alia has said, “I was excited to be a part of this film as I (thought I) would get an opportunity to work with so many different actors and I would pick something up from everybody…….I used to chat with Sanju sir and talk about my dad (Mahesh Bhatt) and with Madhuri ma’am about diet. With Sonakshi, we used to talk about random things and Aditya was very quiet initially. He opened up later.”
