Vicky Kaushal on Sardar Udham: Sticking to that note of 21-year angst was difficult
Updated on: 01 October, 2021 11:51 AM IST |Vijayalakshmi Narayanan
You do some films for box-office success, and others for creative satisfaction. For Vicky Kaushal, Sardar Udham is a deeply personal project. With the period piece, he wants to ensure that the heroes of the Indian freedom struggle are not lost in the annals of history. He is agonised that many revolutionaries, over the decades, have been reduced to a few paragraphs in history books.
“Sardar Udham Singh was probably [covered in] one paragraph; he is not widely ed in our books. But I have heard stories about him from my grandparents and parents. I related to his angst because the Jallianwala Bagh massacre shook everybody. He went to the heart of the British Empire and avenged the bloodshed — that’s a story of brilliance and bravery,” says Kaushal, proud to breathe life into the part in the Shoojit Sircar-directed biopic.
Singh assassinated Michael O’Dwyer, the former lieutenant governor of Punjab who played a key role in the 1919 massacre, in 1940. While it was easy to understand Singh’s motivations, the actor admits becoming the character was tough. “I had to believe that one could hold on to his angst for 21 years. To stick to that note was difficult. It was an emotional journey to play Sardar Udham Singh. For Uri: The Surgical Strike [2019], I had to undergo physical prep. Here, it was more of mental prep.” He is confident that Singh’s brave actions will resonate with the audiences even today, as he states, “The ideologies and truth never change.”
The movie, originally designed for a big-screen release, will now drop on Amazon Prime Video. Interestingly, Sircar’s Gulabo Sitabo was the first Hindi release to take the digital route amid the pandemic last year. “I don’t feel I am making a mistake by taking the film to an OTT platform. When Gulabo had gone on OTT, there was a lot of talk about it. I had clarified then that we could no longer hold on to that film. Once my movie is ready, I am impatient and want it to reach the masses. I will miss the cinematic experience of theatres. [But] this film needs a global platform [which a streaming giant provides],” reasons Sircar.
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