Rannvijay Singha talks about his debut fiction show and his films
Namrata Thakkar (DNA; November 20, 2014)


You were supposed to join the Indian army but destiny had other plans for you. In Pukaar you play an army officer. Has life come full circle for you?
It has…it’s like homecoming for me. My father is still serving in the Indian Army. He is a Lieutenant General and he is serving in Syria. My chacha is a Major General and my younger chacha is Colonel. So it seems like all their desires and wishes have been granted and I am getting to live an army officer’s life, at least, briefly. The fact is that I do know all the nitty gritty that goes into being an army officer and that has helped me in playing this character.

Do you think your family will be most critical about you show?
My family is critical about everything I do. At the same time, none of them is from the industry so they kind of respect all the hard work that I have put in but in this case they might come up with, ‘you know this is not possible’ or ‘aise thodi na hota hai.’ They may say you should have done this or you should have used that language. You know army officers usually speak a lot in English. But the thing is as soon as I start doing that with my character, I will be alienating a lot of people who don’t understand that. So, sometimes when you’re doing a show which is made for entertainment, you need to make sure that people understand what you’re doing or saying. I don’t know if army officers talk like my character Rajveer Shergill does in the show but then that’s only because we want the audience to understand what we are trying to convey. Also, we are not using a lot of lingo which is used in the army as only army personnel will understand that.

Pukaar is an hard-core action show. Did you undergo any training for the same?
The thing is I have always been very active all my life with martial arts and stuff like that. Last year, I did a show called Rann VJ Run where I practiced Parkour and all my Roadies experiences and the life that I led before that thanks to my Dad, has been used here. Also, Vipul sir (Vipul Amrutlal Shah) knows me since London Dreams and Action Repalyy days. He knows my ability to do different things and we have used most of my capabilities in a good way during action sequences. Of course, I did lot of cable practices, martial arts flexibility and also spent some time with Vicky Arora who is a martial art fight choreographer. Few days before the shoot, we would choreograph the fight scenes so that on the day of the shoot it’s less time consuming and easy.

Was it easy for you to play the role of Rajveer Shergill?
Having knowledge about something doesn’t mean it will be easy when you do it. I know how to hit a sixer but in reality to do that it’s tough. You have to put all your knowledge into practice. There are dialogues which are intense. I have a lot of intense scenes with Raj Babbar who is playing my father and even action sequences are tough. Nevertheless, when you do tough things, you feel better, you get a better self satisfaction and you’re happier. But yes it’s tough. It’s actually a very gruelling schedule. If you equate the kind of work we are doing, we are actually shooting 12 films. Twenty four hours of a movie are being shown in one hour episode each. If you put that together then it’s 12 full-fledged two hour movies we are shooting in a span of eight to nine months. That means we are shooting every day back-to-back. It’s very intense but we all are consumed by it so it’s good.

Are the makers planning to take things forward and come up with season 2?
That purely depends on Vipul sir and the channel. But yes they are already hinting at season 2 because we are not going to extend the series like other serials. How we are different from the other daily soaps is that our show will have a definite end. The kind of equipment used on the show, the people involved in the show and the scale at which the series has been shot is all larger-than-life. A lot of movies you see won’t have such production quality and action sequences. If we do it in these 24 episodes, we will achieve what we want and then we can go forward and make another season. But we won’t drag it like a daily soap.

Did you watch action shows to prepare for your role?
There is no picking up cues when you’re already working with a guy who has made films like Commando, Holiday and Force. So in the action genre Vipul sir is a success. What I watch generally are shows like Homeland, Breaking Bad, Modern Family and Prison Break. I like series which are like mini movies because they have great production scale, amazing performance and plot.

Lastly, will you be focusing only on television henceforth or would you be working in films as well?
This is my debut in television fiction. I have never acted on small screen and I was never going to because what you see on Indian television an actor would do it only because it’s a steady source of income and popularity. As actors they were not satisfied. I did Pukaar because firstly we were making it like a huge film. Even the performances are very natural like in a film. Not over the top or dramatic. That’s why I did it. As for films, 3 A.M. released recently and I am doing another film which is releasing on January 16. It’s called Sharafat Gayi Tel Lene with Zayed Khan. As soon as Pukaar finishes, few films are lined up for which I will shoot in March and April. Also, I have done a film with Abbas Tyrewala called Mango which has Swara Bhaskar, Monali Thakur and Chandan Roy Sanyal toh wo bhi release hogi. Movies are happening side by side. There are a few Punjabi films as well but I have asked them to shoot it with someone else or wait a little bit.