For his starring role in the recent action movie “Ishaqzaade,” the young actor Arjun Kapoor did the prep work expected of an aspiring leading man in Bollywood. He took acting classes. He worked on his dancing. And he spent months transforming his flabby stomach into a gym-hardened washboard of six-pack abs.
In the film, Mr. Kapoor fires pistols, stares down rivals and woos his love interest, keeping his abdomen on reserve until the “item number,” the song-and-dance routine common in most Bollywood movies. Then he lustily pulls up the bottom of his shirt, biting it between his teeth, as he undulates his exposed stomach toward his female prey, the dancer Gauhar Khan. It is the film’s ab moment (with a few more to come).
“The audience likes to see that in a man,” Mr. Kapoor said of his abdominal muscles, adding that he also had a personal incentive, having lost almost 100 pounds for his first big acting role. “I wanted it to be there for posterity, for when I look back. I can say, ‘My stomach looked good in that song.’ ”
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