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Vicky Kaushal gets ready to strike again

The Raazi star calls Uri: The Surgical Strike, out in the UAE tomorrow, the most physically challenging film of his career yet

Last year, Vicky Kaushal was seen as a Pakistani Army officer in Meghna Gulzar's much lauded film Raazi, based on a fictional account of a reportedly true story of an Indian Kashmiri undercover agent. In his upcoming film Uri: The Surgical Strike, Vicky will be seen playing the role of an Indian commando out for vengeance. The film is based on the Indian Army's 2016 surgical strikes across the border in retaliation for the Uri attack that led to the death of 19 army personnel. Talking about the tonality of the movie, director Aditya Dhar said that in a battlefield, a commando uses loud language to motivate soldiers. Reflecting his director's thought, while talking to City Times over the phone from Mumbai, Vicky said both the movies have a different texture. "In Raazi we were talking about humans on both sides of the border hence it was a completely different film. It was an operation based film but this film is about the Indian Army's response to terrorism. There is a difference in the story and the texture of the film, if you are comparing the tonality of the film."
Shooting for the movie was a soul-stirring experience for Vicky Kaushal who got to see and experience life from the perspective of young army people. 
"Once you live an army life and get to interact with them, you understand the tough life that they live. You start feeling pity about the things that you consider as problems in your life. We were shooting in the Patiala Cantonment area and the regiment posted there was very sweet and they hosted us for dinner. We were having fun and we hung out till late with them. One of the captains asked me about my plans for the next day, I said that I have an off day so I will sleep till noon. When I asked him about his plan, he replied saying that it's 4am right now but at 5am I have to go for a 25-kilometer run and he shared his busy schedule with me. I felt really bad for keeping him up till late and apologised. 
"He said with a smile on his face that 'we face each day as it comes because we never know when our picture will be in the papers tomorrow.' He was as young as me, he was in his early 20s. When you meet them (people from the armed forces), talk to them and see their spirit in a personal way, it makes you feel so small and your respect for them goes beyond any limits."
The 30-year-old introvert, who is on a roll with the success of movies like Sanju, Manmarziyaan and Raazi, believes that he has a 'beautiful problem' as he cannot gain weight! So it was a challenge for him to gain 15kg to look the part of a Major. 
He did around 6-7 months of training, "because I had a trainer taking care of my nutrition and workouts but that was a surface level preparation. There was a boot camp training for me along with 20 other actors who were playing army men. We wanted to get the stamina and body language of the army people right and to understand crawling, jumping, code languages etc. We also had military training at Cuffe Parade in Mumbai. They trained us for a couple of weeks in their obstacle training programme." 
 The actor did five hours a day of military training to enhance his stamina. He also learnt how to use guns at the Naval Base. 
All the stunts in Uri, we are informed have been performed by the actors themselves. 
The army also got them acquainted to slithering, using arms and ammunitions and other drills. 
"They taught us how to get down from choppers using ropes - what you see in the trailers is not some stuntmen doing those scenes, we are doing everything on our own. 6-7 months of training went by and I met lots of Army Generals to learn about their experiences. It was amazing to get an insight into how they felt before going on a mission and how they coped with losing fellow soldiers during attacks. It was nice to understand their fears and struggles."
Vicky Kaushal did suffer a tennis elbow during the shooting of the film but "it was taken care of". He calls Uri the most physically challenging film of his career.
Uri also features Yami Gautam, Kirti Kulhari and Paresh Rawal in lead roles and is out in UAE theatres on Thursday.
 

Cinema under threat?
"Thanks to digital media, social barriers are being broken and everyone has entertainment in their pockets now. We have access to content worldwide. If we are now expecting the audience to take out money from their pockets and come to theatres, it had better be good. Cinema has been challenged because there is great content available on mobile phones, laptops, television etc. We need to give audiences something that they are not getting out of their gadgets if we want them to come to theatres."
 
 
On indulging in characters post filming
"It depends on how you want to shake off that character from you. Sometimes, you don't have time as you need to start another film, hence you do not indulge in a character that you have just lived. I wanted to stay with my character from Masaan for a while but the character I played in Raman Raghav was so not me, I did not like being that guy and I did not like thinking like him. I was out of the character the very next day because I did not want to indulge in that character."
Vicky wants One film at a time
"I have always done one film at a time. This is pretty much the pattern that almost every actor is following these days. Because right now the work culture is such that your movie completely consumes you because when you are shooting for a film, you are pretty much shooting about 15-16 hours a day."
 
arti@khaleejtimes.com