Actor Rajkummar Rao who has been on a roll in the year 2017 is now all set to venture into new territory of digital space with his upcoming web series ‘Bose: Dead/Alive’. Rajkummar interacted with media promoting his upcoming web series on Friday in Mumbai. In a media interview, Rajkummar said that working with Hansal Mehta on ‘Bose: Dead/ Alive’ was like coming back home.
Over last few years Hansal Mehta and Rajkummar Rao have created lethal combination working together in films. Both of them has worked with each other in critically acclaimed ‘Aligarh’, ‘City Lights’ and ‘Shahid’ and now they are venturing into digital space, sharing his experience working with Hansal Mehta on ‘Bose: Dead/Alive’ , Rajkummar said, “It’s been seven years Hansal sir and me are working together. When I work with him, I don’t feel that we are making a film. It’s like going out with your family and creating something. We don’t feel any kind of pressure while shooting and working with Hansal sir is like coming home back and now we are together promoting our web series”
“I also had fun working with Pulkit (director) because he trusts his actors and gives freedom to them. There will be no specific boundation like other directors from his side when we’re shooting the certain scene. He has very clear vision as a director”
Talking about ‘Bose: Dead’Alive’, Rajkummar said, “We all know Bose was our national hero but we know very little about his life. We know that he formed INA (Indian National Army) or about his mysterious disappearance in plane crash but we don’t know about his life and ideologies so through our web series we have tried to showcase his life journey right from his original roots, upbringing, values and we also touched upon stories after his disappearance keeping all facts in our mind so I feel Bose is very important series as he is our national hero so it’s necessary that we should know about his story”
When asked Rao how big this opportunity for him to play iconic character of Subhash Chandra Bose, he said, “It was a big opportunity for me. I feel fortunate that this series was offered to me and I got an opportunity to play the character of Bose. There are very few instances in actor’s career where he gets a chance to play such strong characters and that too at such young age so I feel very blessed. When we were starting it we knew it will take lot of effort from our side because I don’t look like him but we worked really hard and we have tried to create this series with honesty, sincerity, and authenticity so I hope people will appreciate our efforts”
Talking about preparation he did for the character of Bose , Rao said, “I put on 12-13 kgs weight to look similar to him then I shaved my head half because we Bose had a particular look that we all are aware of so I didn’t want to fake it by using prosthetics and to get under the skin of character I read books based on him, watched few videos of him to analyze his body-language so I did all those things which were necessary to play him because it becomes your responsibility to portray historical figure like him correctly”
‘Bose: Dead/Alive’ traces the journey of the freedom fighter from being an introvert to a brave nationalist and a rebel. The show will be released on ALTBalaji, which is backed by Ekta Kapoor.
It has been directed by Pulkit and has Hansal Mehta as its creative producer, with whom Rajkummar has already done some remarkable work in films like Shahid, CityLights, and Aligarh.
The web-series also stars Sanjay Gurbaxani, Surendra Rajan, Patralekha, Naveen Kasturia and Anna Ador, and it will begin streaming from November 20.
