Actor Vidyut Jamwal remembers always having an affinity for animals while growing up in Kerala - he was brought up around three horses. But it wasn't until he trained with them for his movie Junglee, which releases next April, that he realised what great, magnificent beasts they were. "My experience was very different. The ones around you are used to human beings, but in the wild they are very different. Even if they wag their tail, they might hurt you," says the actor, who plays an elephant whisperer in the film.

The protagonist of the movie is Bhola, a Thai elephant, and Jamwal had to travel to Thailand to meet him and his existing owner to learn what "elephant whispering" really was. "It was the most challenging thing I've done yet. A whisperer is someone who has a tacit conversation with an animal - you don't say 'hey, you are so beautiful'.