Mumbai: Actress Elnaaz Norouzi, known for her performances in Sacred Games and Tehran, revealed that she continued shooting for Mastii 4 despite suffering a knee injury. The actress went through intensive dance rehearsals with choreographer Adil Shaikh, completing four back-to-back song sequences and crucial scenes without disrupting the shoot schedule.
The injury, she shared, had occurred earlier during the filming of the song “Ishq Bukhaar” for Tehran. Unfortunately, all four major songs for Mastii 4 were lined up at the beginning of the schedule, and rescheduling wasn’t possible. Determined to stay on track, Elnaaz decided to push through the pain and finish the songs before moving on to the rest of the film.
With physiotherapy support and careful movement management, she ensured her participation remained safe. “Injuries happen on set, especially when there’s dancing involved,” Elnaaz said. “I wasn’t thrilled about the knee acting up, but I didn’t want it to break our momentum. We were in a great rhythm, and I wanted to stay connected with the team.”
The actress fondly recalled the cheerful atmosphere on set, where her colleagues constantly checked on her and turned the situation into a source of laughter. “My birthday actually fell in the middle of the Mastii 4 shoot,” she said. “Milap wished me saying, ‘Happy birthday! Wish you a year full of love and harmony.’ But instead of writing ‘harmony,’ he typed ‘knee’—with K-N-E-E! Then when we were about to shoot a song, instead of saying ‘Break a leg,’ everyone joked, ‘Break a knee!’ Even Vivek started calling me El Knees instead of Elnaaz.”
She added that the knee jokes became a running gag throughout the schedule. “Every day someone came up with a new one. Instead of feeling sorry for me, everyone just made the knee part of the fun. It might sound silly, but that laughter kept me going.”
Despite the discomfort, Elnaaz completed all four songs—adapting the choreography when needed and taking short breaks between takes. “Dancers and actors push through things all the time,” she said. “As long as the doctors cleared me and I could move, I wasn’t going to sit out. When the energy on set is positive, it changes everything. Milap, Riteish, Aftab, and Vivek are such a fun bunch—the knee didn’t win, though it sure heard enough jokes to retire!”
Mastii 4 is set to release in cinemas soon.
With inputs from IANS