Suraj Sharma learnt swimming for ‘Life Of Pi’

Washington: Indian actor Suraj Sharma didn’t know how to swim before ‘Life Of Pi’ came his way. The 19-year-old actor was stunned to land the lead role in Ang Lee’s big screen adaptation of Yann Martel’s best-selling book as he had never acted before and was especially terrified about playing the role of a shipwrecked boy, cast adrift on the ocean. ‘‘I remember feeling very clearly that someone is lying to me (about winning the role). I didn’t know how to swim before,” Contactmusic quoted him as telling Huffingtonpost. “And I had to film the scene of Pi watching his family drown so, right from the beginning; we knew I was going to have to hold my breath for a minute, minute and a half. We did a test, and I held my breath for 14 seconds, and that’s really bad.” ‘‘We had to train every day for that one scene, so it was in my head the whole time. And for five or six days before then, I couldn’t hold my breath for that long, but they trained me really hard,’’ he added. ANI