Sushant Singh Rajput
Nayandeep Rakshit (DNA; August 14, 2017)

When Sushant Singh Rajput takes up a film, he does a lot of research to understand the nuances of his character. He lives and breathes the part till he’s done with the film. It is rare for him to work on two films simultaneously. However, his space adventure film Chandamama Door Ke and his romantic saga Kedarnath, will go on floors in quick succession. The actor has started his prep and workshops for both the films together.

Two different worlds
At Sushant’s Bandra house, the actor has created two different worlds. One room has a poster of Sushant wearing a spacesuit, pasted on the door, while the other has a huge poster of the Kedarnath temple on the door. The actor keeps shuttling between the two rooms, much like he will be doing on the sets of the two films in the coming months.

My work space
Talking about creating the two work spaces, Sushant says, “This was completely my idea. There’s a team helping me out with it. These kinds of set-ups help in the complete and continuous immersion into that world, which will allow you to believe that you are that character. This happened because I have never worked on two-three characters at the same time. With newer problems, you have to come up with new solutions. It’s helping till now, so let’s see!”

Balancing act!
The shoot of Kedarnath begins on August 25. Mid-way through the filming, Sushant begins work on Chandamama..., too. “We start shooting Kedarnath this month and then we take a break when I begin Chandamama. The schedules of both films will intertwine,” reveals Sushant. The process of his prep is very different from what other actors follow.

He says, “People only talk about how much weight an actor has gained or dropped, or how much hair he’s grown or shaved for a film. That’s how they gauge a great actor (laughs), but I think those are the simplest things that an actor does. There are other more intricate things like changing the way you think.”

Teerth yatra-ready
As I step into the Kedarnath room. I notice that this room has an austere decor. There is a charpai, some old wooden furniture, and a lot of other elements of a pilgrimage which is essentially the underlying theme of the film. Sushant continues, “If I have to read a script of Chandamama, I will sit in the other room. Even if I’m not looking at the script and I’m looking around, I will still be seeing the things that I am supposed to see. Probably something will catch my attention and I will Google it. Maybe, something like the lunar module which is right there (points to the module which is stuck on the wall). Or I might just watch all the animation videos of the lunar module that I have. It’s just like being in that space and thinking about it again and again. That’s the intent.”

Space travel
The other room has been designed with a lot of pictures of space and moon — all collected from NASA — carefully positioned on the walls. Along with that, there is a huge poster of Sushant in a spacesuit and a lot of other mementos and pictures that Sushant clicked during his recent trip to NASA. He shows me an ice-cream that astronauts have in space, and books that he’s reading to understand the modules and the logistics behind how a space aircraft works. But the best element in the room has to be the Virtual Reality system that he has installed. The room has a VR box that can transcend you to space in no time. “Once you wear these VR boxes, you can actually walk on the moon,” he says.