Jodhaa Akbar, which stars Hrithik Roshan and Aishwarya Rai, is Yuri’s first exposure to a big-budget, A-grade Bollywood film. “With Ashutosh everything has to be perfect and things are worked out to the last detail. There is no improvisation on the sets. If does not like the light, he packs up for the day and comes back for a repeat shoot,” says Yuri. He put in some serious effort to get the role right. “I downloaded the Akbarnama from the Internet and went through the passages relevant to my role,” he says.

The shoot, which was mostly done at Dhula Gaon in Jaipur and at set designer Nitin Desai’s lavish studio at Karjat, took him over three months to complete, and the whole experience, he says, was amazing. While his interaction with Rai was limited because he did not have very many scenes with her, Yuri had to shoot extensively with Roshan and is all praises for the stylish actor. “He is extremely down-to-earth and quite a perfectionist. We trained in Urdu diction together and he would go over his lines in real earnest,” he recalls. Not just that, apparently Roshan made sure that everybody on the sets had a taste of his delectable lunch that came from home every afternoon. “He hardly eats, but his mother is an amazing cook. So everyday when his lunch box came, we would happily tuck into his home-cooked chicken and dessert,” he chuckles.