'I'll never forget shooting the aftermath of massacre'
Bollywood star Vicky Kaushal is in seventh heaven ever since his latest film 'Sardar Udham' got released and received rave reviews from the critics as well as the audience.
Available on 'Amazon Prime Video', the epic biographical historical drama presents the life of Udham Singh Kamboj, a freedom fighter from Punjab, who assassinated Michael O'Dwyer in London to avenge 1919 Jallianwala Bagh massacre in Amritsar.
In a conversation with 'Millennium Post', Vicky Kaushal got candid about his experience of shooting specific scenes that still give him goosebumps, his thoughts on the legendary freedom fighter and his love for acting.
Talking about his experience while shooting the scene of the Jallianwala Bagh massacre as Udham Singh, Vicky said, "I had to shoot for long hours for 'Sardar Udham' as we had no clue about what kind of shot was to be taken by the director and cinematographer. Since, the script was not planned at all, each one of us was doing what we thought was right at that very moment. But the aftermath of the massacre is one such scene that I will never forget in my life."
"I immersed myself in Udham Singh's thought process to show that my character was neither an expert on how to deal with innumerable dead bodies around him nor he knows how to drag those lifeless bodies anywhere. Honestly, I was not at all prepared to process how in real life Udham Singh felt standing in the middle of the massacre," he added.
Kaushal continued, "Playing Udham Singh, especially in this scene, was mentally and emotionally exhausting. I still cannot imagine how traumatising and horrifying it was for the victims of the massacre. I kept thinking about the real-life nightmare while shooting this heart-wrenching sequence. Everything about 'Sardar Udham' is going to stay with me forever."
The actor further commented, "It's for the first time that I got to play a character like this in my career, which is so powerful. He is shown as a person who is lost and disjointed from the tragic events that happened with him at an early age. To convey the honesty of the story, things were aligned in a specific way."
About Udham Singh, Kaushal said that he was a pure soul. Anybody would have got affected by the aftermath of the Jallianwala Bagh massacre and he was no different. "Like the rest of the freedom fighters, he also wanted India to get free from the Britishers. He was the kind of person who hated Britishers' imperialism but did not hate the Britishers. He was an individual who was mature enough to differentiate hatred from freedom and unity. Films like 'Sardar Udham' should get more global platforms to show the kind of atrocities India had endured in the past. For me, Udham Singh is a legendary hero!"
Speaking about his love for acting, he said, "As an actor, I feel blessed to get a chance to understand other's work in the line of cinema and to get involved in their world. I love to learn new things, which I enjoy in my job. I feel blessed to collaborate with talented actors and filmmakers and their stories every day. I always try to find ways of letting my audience enjoy and understand the stories behind my movies."
"For 'Sardar Udham', I surrendered myself completely to director Shoojit Sircar and learned some of the most interesting things that have helped me evolve as an actor and a human," he concluded.
