It is difficult to imagine the reed-slim Anushka Sharma as a wrestler. But director Ali Abbas Zafar did, and he cast her in Sultan. He says, “When I was doing research for the film, l knew that there are boy and girl wrestlers. When I went to Delhi, Haryana, I realised wrestling has different weight categories. I met lot of girls who were lean and yet they were wrestling. The game is about the technique, not about how bulky one is.”
He faced some resistance from Anushka too who told him that her body type wasn’t of a wrestler. But once Ali showed her videos of girl wrestlers, she was convinced.