Priyanka Chopra to learn boxing from Mary Kom

Priyanka Chopra’s next offering, after “Barfi”, is going to be a biopic on Olympic medal winner Mary Kom.
Earlier on, it was a choice between Priyanka and Deepika who were both vying for the same role. Only on the basis of her physical appearance and stature that is closer to Mary Kom’s, she got selected for the role.
Mary Kom recently won the bronze medal at the Olympics 2012, and is also a five-time women’s boxing champion. The film on her is being directed by Sanjay Leela Bhansali. He is known to be a tough taskmaster and Priyanka therefore will have no other way than to learn the art of boxing and to teach her this, the real-life Mary Kom will come handy.
She will grill herself for four months to get a hang of the school of boxing. The time-span is very short but Priyanka is said to be assured that after all the lessons, she will be able to punch and box like a professional.
As the film requires method-acting she will have to give in even more time to this film. She will fly off to Manipur to stay with the boxer’s family. There she intends to understand more about Mary and her life, her struggles and her role as that of a mother as well. She is sure to come across certain anecdotes that will help her get into the skin of her character.
A source revealed, “She needs to understand how Mary has struggled to perfect her sport even though she had to play mother to twins and take care of her husband. There are a lot of things about Mary’s family that nobody knows. For instance, Mary’s father became aware of his daughter’s affinity to boxing only after he read about her achievements in the newspaper. By spending time with the family, Priyanka will get to know about such stories.”
To take the interest circling the film a notch higher it is being hummed that the real-life Mary Kom will have a special appearance in the movie wherein she will act as the opponent to Priyanka’s character- the onscreen Mary Kom.
Generally, any sport film does not find any takers in their audience. However, “Lagaan” was an exception and even found entry at the Oscar in the year 2002. “Chak De India” too was commercially successful. We certainly hope that Priyanka finds the same kind of success with her film.