Having been in the industry for a few years now, actor Vicky Kaushal has established himself as a force to reckon with. The actor, in the recent past, has delivered several hit films including Sanju and Uri: The Surgical Strike among others. His latest release Sardar Udham, released on Amazon Prime Video, has received critical acclaim. His performance as revolutionary freedom fighter Sardar Udham Singh in Shoojit Sircar’s directorial has won him rave reviews, and deservingly so.
Not many people know that the role was initially intended for the late Irrfan Khan. Asked how difficult it was for him to take up a role meant for an actor of Khan’s calibre, who was often called legendary for his acting skills, Kaushal says it’s a matter of huge honour more than anything else.
The actor, however, was certain there was no question of filling his shoes or matching his legacy, because “it’s not possible.”
“Actually I never took that pressure about it because I know that Irrfan sir was in a different league of actors. There was no question of filling his shoes or matching his legacy because it’s not possible. In my heart, I was just feeling like I wanted his blessings to be there with me while I attempt to play his part. I really hope that I’ve achieved at least 1 per cent of what he could’ve achieved as an actor with the same part but this film would be my humble tribute to Irrfan sir,” he said
Kaushal also took a trip down memory lane and shared that he had gotten the opportunity of interacting with him on a personal level only once.
“When I had gone for a screening of his film Madaari… and I had interacted with him post the screening and that’s the only time when I interacted with him. He was such an amazing soul, such an amazing person in those 5 minutes I got to interact with him. More so, I have interacted with him through his movies and so many characters that he has played,” he shared.
Sardar Udham was a challenging part for Kaushal, especially because of how Sircar envisioned the story to be shared with the audiences. To get that state of his mind right, Kaushal had to internalise each and every emotion, which became really challenging sometimes. “Because there are some emotions that you’re not comfortable touching upon. But when you have to internalise those emotions, you sometimes have to take a part of it with you. You carry that part with you which becomes a very heavy process…” he said, adding the physical part was also a challenge, as he played Udham Singh in his various age groups. “I am playing a 20-year-old and a 30-year-old and then a 40-year-old and then there are these big fluctuations where you’re reducing 14 kilos and then you’re gaining it all back to shoot another portion of the film. All of that takes a bit of task and it’s not just a few kilos, it was like 14 kilos,” he added.
The actor is all praise for Sircar and shared that he doesn’t complicate any part by creating a big mountain or cloud over an actor’s head about what’s to be done. “He keeps it very simple, he keeps it like super simple. He would give you a basic idea like you can just imagine him and I just want that state of mind… It would be a very simple brief but a very spot-on brief,” he said, adding that what he does he does it beautifully, and has a wonderful team to rely on.
“When you land on that set as that character, in that costume and that makeup and everything, the world is so beautifully recreated for you that you genuinely feel like you are in the 1930s. You genuinely feel like you’re in that part of London, you genuinely feel that you know the authenticity of the world and that you start giving things back. When you’re put in a space where you genuinely believe that you’re there, our work as an actor also gets sorted,” he said, crediting Sircar’s team for acing even the minutest details on the set.
The film is based on the Jallianwala Bagh massacre, and it’s a heavy subject to deal with. Asked if there were moments when it got overwhelming for him and Kaushal said that sometimes there were portions that he’d take back to the hotel room. “I couldn’t sleep in the night just thinking that it was an intense scene today, but I was just re-enacting a life that was once lived. So to imagine that aaj jo maine intensity feel ki somebody has actually lived that, somebody has actually gone through that pain, that kind of a moment in life and that used to not make me sleep. I was like how can I or how can anybody survive this pain… how can someone survive and experience something like Jallianwala Bagh massacre,” he recounted.
As a Punjabi, Kaushal had some familiarity with the lesser-known story of Sardar Udham Singh. He also shared that his native house is at a two-hour distance from Jallianwala Bagh in Amritsar, so even while growing up, he remembers asking his father if he read or heard anything happening in Punjab.
“I’ve grown up to the stories of Shaheed Bhagat Singh and Sardar Udham Singh and what they had done and what the history books provided us. Of course, Sardar Udham Singh is more of an unsung hero as compared to Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, Shaheed Bhagat Singh. And there are many such unsung heroes in our freedom struggle, especially who have given their lives to make our country free,” he said, adding, “It’s very important to keep those characters alive in our books, in our films, so the generations ahead will remember them.” More than the pressure of recreating a person on screen he has known about since childhood, it was the excitement that took over for Kaushal.
“It was a very exciting process. This is the story that I was hearing while I was growing up and now I’ve got the opportunity to play the same part,” he said, adding, “Imagine you hearing a story about a prince and a princess from your grandmother and 20 years later, you get to play that princess so it’s that kind of a thrill that supersedes the nervous feeling or that pressure.” It was a roller-coaster ride for Kaushal and one that does him well. The film had its theatrical release on October 16 and co-stars Amol Parashar and Banita Sandhu in key roles alongside Kaushal.
