Films on sports and sportsmen in Indian mainstream cinema were few in the past. Lagaan (2001) created fictional history. But that was team sport – cricket. Nagesh Kukkunoor’s Iqbal (2005) was more about a hearing disabled boy’s struggle to find his feet in cricket. Today, Bollywood is flush with biopics on great sportsmen and women. Shoma A. Chatterji explores the trend
When films are made on team sports such as Lagaan or even before that Awwal Number (1990 film by Dev Anand), the audience is aware that the films are pure fiction and entertainment is the driving force. The actors too, need lesser training and discipline than when they are bringing real sportspersons to life. When it comes to real-life realizations on celluloid such as Chak De India and Mary Kom, the picture changes.
Actors prepared to make the creative and performing leap must be committed to the hard work involved in bringing to life the struggles, successes and failures of a famous sports person with his/her weaknesses and strengths. For the audience, these films are a motivational force with positive messages and lessons in patience, determination and focus being part of the story.
How do the actors slipping under the skin of real characters, who have excelled in sport, perform with enough authenticity to convince the audience and the sportsperson, if alive?
Take the example of the film on Paan Singh Tomar, an exceptional athlete, who ruled the steeplechase event (a 3,000 meter obstacle race that includes a water jump) at the National Games seven years in a row (his record stood unbeaten for 10 years) in the 1950s and 1960s, and represented India at international competitions. Later, he was forced to become a dacoit.
Says actor Irrfan Khan who essayed the role of Tomar: “I heard about Tomar and his extra-ordinary achievements first from Tigmangshu Dhulia. Two months before the shoot, I took physical training from a Delhi-based national-level coach on Steeplechase. It was difficult but enjoyable. I also undertook lessons on voice modulation and pronunciation as I had to speak in local dialect.”
“It was a different experience because you need to be convincing in all aspects to resemble the person that you are essaying. The character required me to be physically fit. Hence after the shoot, I would exercise. Chambal is a beautiful place, so I would go for jogs in the evenings,” Khan says.
His hard work bagged him the Best Actor Award at the National Awards. He adds that the film has changed his way of looking at life, discipline and commitment.
Let us see what Farhaan Akhtar had in for the title role in Bhaag Milkha Bhaag that fetched him the National Award for Best Actor. Olympian Milkha Singh is one of India’s most iconic athletes. The film is based on his life which has all cinematic elements of drama, irony, tragedy, struggles and triumphs. Farhan transformed his look completely and turned himself into a man with lean body muscle. He went through hard core training for 18 months before shooting began to acquire the original body Milkha Singh had as a young man.
“But that had only 40% of what we were working at. The remaining 60% came from proper sleep and a clean diet because I was repeatedly told that our muscles need time to recover and need at least eight hours of sleep,” says Farhaan. He went into hard training, cardio exercises and a strict schedule.
“Naturally, some of this tends to spill over into your real life even after the film is over, because the main goal was to increase the endurance,” he sums up.
As this story is being written, news filters in that Mary Kom, selected for the Stockholm International Film Festival (SIFFJ), has won the Best Film Award and has been invested with the Bronze Horse Award, the festival’s top honour. Mary Kom will be showcased in Sweden again by the Indian Embassy at the Indian Film Festival next month. The jury for the junior section of the festival consisted of children from the age of nine to 17.
Mary Kom is an Indian boxer of present day and an Olympic medal winner. She is a five-time World Amateur Boxing champion, and the only woman boxer to have won a medal in each one of the six world championships. She is the only Indian woman boxer to have qualified for the 2012 Summer Olympics, competing in the flyweight (51 kg) category and winning the bronze medal. She became the first Indian woman boxer to get a Gold Medal in the Asian Games in 2014 in Incheon, South Korea. Priyanka Chopra was chosen to play Mary Kom in the film.
Priyanka Chopra has repeatedly said “Mary Kom has been one of the hardest films of her career. “I had to really sweat it out in the gym to achieve the perfect physique to portray the boxer on screen. I had to transform myself from a glamorous actress to a hard-hitting sportsperson. It took me two years of determination taught by my mentor Mary Kom herself.”
Priyanka suffered an injury while shooting for the film while filming a boxing scene with an actor from the North-East. She fell on the floor because of the impact. But as she got the shot spot on, director Omung Kumar decided to retain it. “The cut mark one sees on the screen under her eye is real though it was touched up with a bit of make-up to make it seem more real,” says the director.
Films on celebrated and classic sports persons have created a new genre of biopics which are always very positive, strong and optimistic. One wonders what stance the director will take for the proposed biopic on Mohammed Azharuddin with Emran Hashmi playing Azharuddin considering the dark clouds looming over his off-the-field career. One needs to look at Sushant Singh Rajput’s realisation of M.S. Dhoni because Dhoni it is presumed, still has a lot left in him to give to Indian cricket, never mind that he has retired from Test cricket. There is Ranbir Kapoor penciled in for a biopic on Dhyan Chand. Will Abhishek Bacchan be able to pull off a Yuvraj Singh? Let us wait and see… (TWS)
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