By Subhash K Jha

Vidya Balan learnt dancing for Piyadarshan's Bhool Bhulaya, John is learning to play the guitar in Rock Star ...And to play the stressed-out working class commuter in the Tamil version of Nishikant Kamath's Domibivili Fast, Madhavan starved himself for days.

"I had to feel what it means to skip meals, go hungry for a large part of the day to feel like my character. In Guru where I had a role.

Abhishek Bachchan put on oodles of weight to play the businessman. I think authenticity is catching on in our cinema."

Hindi cinema seems enamoured of sports films. It started with Shimit Amin's Chak De. Then came Vivek Agnihotri's Goal.It featured footballers from Bangladesh playing alongside John Abraham, Kushal Punjabi and Arshad Warsi who were good players..

"It was tough." Says John. "Fortunately I've played football at the national level. So I could cope."

Adds Arshad, " The era of specialized acting is upon Bollywood. Gone is the time when actors could fake it.Now you really have to know what you're doing. Otherwise audiences would boo and shoo you."

Shabana Azmi spent months learning Carnatic singing before doing Mahesh Dattani's Morning Raga.

Her devotion paid rich dividends. An accomplished composer-singer like Shankar Mahadevan thinks Shabana's level of authenticity in Morning Raga is extraordinary.

Even a relative newcomer like Sammir Dattani pulled out all stops to play the 17 year old government informer in Mani Shankar's Mukhbiir.

"First of all I'm 25 but had to play a 17-year old. Then I played a guy who changes his identity completely including a new religion. I had to adopt a new lingo and body language.

Then there were more fun things to do like learning to shoot a gun."

Keeping the changing trends and levels of authenticity in mind, Anubhav Sinha intends to train three completely untried actors to play the roles that he wants them to.

"I can't reveal what they are going to play. But by the time we start shooting in Italy the boys will be completely ready to play what they have.