‘SHEKHAR IS AN ENCYCLOPEDIA’

Actor Sushant Singh Rajput (left) is currently gearing up to play the role of cricketer Mahendra Singh Dhoni in a biopic on the Indian skipper’s life. While his energies are entirely focused on portraying the cricketer’s life perfectly on screen, he spoke to us about his equation with filmmaker Shekhar Kapur (inset), who is working with him in his next film, Paani. Shekhar announced his magnum opus with Sushant, and despite stories that suggest that the film is being shelved, Sushant says it will happen.

Before work on Paani took off, Sushant spent a lot of time with Shekhar, trying to understand the finer nuances of the craft. He says, “I was with him for a good 6-7 months when I was prepping (for the film). We would randomly go out and he would talk to people about their lives. One day, we sat with a cobbler and he bought him lunch. The three of us were chatting about the cobbler’s life. What I realised from this exercise is that all the answers in life are very simple. We make it complicated. Shekhar dwells on the simpler things. When I say that, I don’t mean he doesn’t understand complicated things.”

He recounts the first time he met Shekhar and tried to impress him with his knowledge of quantum physics, which obviously backfired. “I remember when I met him, the first week I had just quietly listened to him talk. In the second week, I decided it was time for me to talk on quantum physics because it is one of his favourite topics. And then for the next six hours, he was talking and I was listening. He is an encyclopedia.”