Ishaan Khatter had to shed muscles for his role in Neeraj Ghaywan’s Homebound, the actor revealed in a recent interview.

“The first thing that he said to me out of all the beautiful things was, ‘You got to lose the muscles!’ I was like, yeah, I can do that, it is easier for me to look like that,” the Dhadak actor said.

Ghaywan had told Khatter that not a single sinew should be visible on his body, the 29-year-old actor added.

“I was just coming off of The Royals, where it was a job requirement. That was a physical part of it,” he told film critic Sucharita Tyagi in an interview on her YouTube channel.

Khatter also heaped praise on Ghaywan’s storytelling. “He is a very unique director. He has a singular vision and does not leave a stone unturned in approaching it with complete devotion. He is one of the rare directors that is involved in every step of your process as an actor, which I really appreciated,” the actor said.

In addition to Khatter, Homebound stars Vishal Jethwa and Janhvi Kapoor. The film received a nine-minute standing ovation at the 78th annual Cannes Film festival following its screening in the Un Certain Regard section on May 21.

Homebound is jointly produced by Martin Scorsese, Karan Johar, Adar Poonawalla, Apoorva Mehta and Somen Mishra, with Marijke de Souza and Melita Toscan du Plantier serving as co-producers.

According to the official website of the Cannes Film Festival, the film's logline reads: “Two childhood friends from a small North Indian village chase a police job that promises them the dignity they’ve long been denied. But as they inch closer to their dream, mounting desperation threatens the bond that holds them together.”