Aditya Roy Kapoor’s unusual skill

While prepping for his role in the multi-starrer Ludo, Aditya Roy Kapur has become something of an expert in an unusual art form — ventriloquism! The actor has been trained by a member of the third generation of the Padhye family, which has traditionally been in the movies or trained actors to play ventriloquists.

“I was looking for an opportunity to learn something new. I really got to learn new stuff. I had a wonderful teacher called Satyajit Padhye,” says Aditya. Talking of his role, he says, “I love to mess around with people’s minds just like the character in the film does.” He is paired with Sanya Malhotra in the movie. “It is true that Aditya is a kind of expert in ventriloquism now,” affirms Anurag Basu, who directs Ludo. “I had to ask him to tone down his performance because I wanted him to look like an amateur,” he adds

Incidentally, Satyajit’s father Ramdas Padhye was a puppeteer and a ventriloquist who acted in Amitabh Bachchan’s Mahaan. The Rajendra Kumar film Akeli Mat Jaiyo had a talking doll managed by Ramdas’s father Yeshwant Padhye, who is considered the father of ventriloquism in India.