Mohar Basu (MID-DAY; July 17, 2018)

"My introduction to space studies was when Rakesh Sharma had come to our school to deliver a talk. It was thrilling for me to revisit the stories I had heard as a kid, while I was shooting,” beams Aditi Rao Hydari, who plays an astronaut in director Sankalp Reddy’s yet-untitled space thriller.

Having already shot the first schedule of the Tamil film that sees her opposite South star Varun Tej, the actor says the character came with its set of challenges. “Since I play an astronaut, I had to undergo intensive anti-gravity training. We had a stunt team from Bulgaria that trained Varun and me for a few weeks before we started filming. The first 10 days were rigorous — I would train early in the morning, then fly out to another city for another film’s shoot and return the same night to resume training the next day.”

Considering this is her first sci-fi project, Hydari says she not only had to get into the skin of her character graph but also understand the basics of astronomy. “Sankalp did a lot of research for his script. By the time he narrated it to me, he was ready with the answers to all my questions. I constantly asked him questions during the shoot as it helped me understand what my character is going through.”