‘It is important that Sardar Udham reaches out to every Indian across the world’
Iwake up and from 9am to 9pm, all I am doing is talking about Sardar Udham Singh. Strangely, it is not tiring,” says an excited Vicky Kaushal, who stars in the film Sardar Udham. Based on the life of the revolutionary, the Shoojit Sircar directorial is releasing in 240 countries on Amazon Prime Video today. Here are excerpts from an interview with the 33-year-old:
Shoojit Sircar wanted to make Sardar Udham for two decades. How did you come into the picture?
I reached out to Shoojit da. I messaged him ‘Sir, I would really love to come and meet you in the office’. He happened to be in Mumbai, and I got to meet him, where I voiced out my eagerness to collaborate with him. Little did I know that I would get a call back from his office, and he started discussing about Udham Singh. He wanted to know if I had any familiarity with that. He later revealed that he was planning to make a film on him and cast me.
What sort of prep went into playing Udham Singh?
The pointer I got from Shoojit da for this character was plain and simple: ‘Through this film, I want to get into the state of mind of Udham
Singh’. He wanted the audience to take back the state of mind of this person. I had to surrender to him as much as I could. We need to realise it’s taken the sacrifice and blood of many great personalities because of whom we are living in a free and democratic country.
The news about theatres reopening in Maharashtra came days after your film’s release was announced. Do you wish you had opted for a theatrical release?
It is a great sign that theatres are opening up. I feel for a film like Sardar Udham, it is important that it reaches out to every Indian across the world. In the West, they keep making films on atrocities by the Nazis, they keep reminding the world of the horrific incidents, so we as human beings, do not end up making same mistakes. It was important for the film to have that kind of reach, which we are getting through Amazon Prime Video.