Nitesh Tiwari had the actors of his campus-drama coached in different sports, including cricket, football and swimming
Hiren Kotwani (MUMBAI MIRROR; August 17, 2019)

Going by his last outing, the wrestling drama Dangal, it is obvious that Nitesh Tiwari is not just passionate about sport but also particular about how it is portrayed on screen. For his upcoming release Chhichhore, the director got special coaches for his actors—Sushant Singh Rajput, Tahir Raj Bhasin, Varun Sharma, Prateik Babbar and Naveen Polishetty—to perfect their skills in cricket, football, basketball, tennis, table tennis, athletics and even board games like carom and chess. “What more they extended their prep and were playing cricket and football during lunch breaks,” informs a source from the sets.

Admitting that sport was an integral part of his growing up years, Nitesh points out that the competitive streak depends on which level you are playing. “In Chhichhore, we have inter-hostel sports contests called General Championship aka GC. During my time in college, it was a matter of prestige for a hostel to win GC,” says the filmmaker who spent four years at IIT-Powai studying engineering.

“For the sports sequences, we wanted our actors to look authentic in every sport so they went through extensive three to five-month training under renowned coaches, with physiotherapists handy,” informs Nitesh, adding that some actors went through multiple trainings. “Tahir learnt football, weight-lifting, athletics and kabaddi while Sushant’s character is a statelevel basketball player, besides being a good cricketer and footballer.”






Top to bottom: Swimming competition sequence; Tahir Raj Bhasin lifts weights; Naveen Polishetty in the film