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‘Decided to have advance screenings for public’
Updated On: 30 May, 2022 07:18 AM IST | Mumbai | Mohar Basu
Even though previews ran the risk of piracy, Major star Adivi Sesh says it was important to take braveheart Unnikrishnan’s story across the country
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Adivi Sesh in the film
Standing in his living room in San Francisco, Adivi Sesh - the leading man of Major - movie based on the life of martyred NSG commando Sandeep Unnikrishnan, remembers looking at the TV screens and wondering for the very first time - “Who is this guy who looks like me?” That’s where his association with Sandeep’s story began. Over the next 14 years, the South actor has collected every small or big article on the man he plays on screen. “I have a folder of paper clippings, every tidbit of information. I was always on his Orkut page. Amidst all the darkness, his story was one of hope. He saved so many people’s lives. It made me angry that people only knew of his last 48 hours. What about 31 years before that?” 100 hours of interviews with his parents, friends, colleagues, juniors, NDA classmates aided the making of this screenplay. “We spoke to everyone except his wife because of privacy reasons. Uncle and Amma were clear they didn’t want it. To protect her privacy, we changed her name in the film. The idea was to capture the story’s soul but not getting into precise details.”
As an actor, this was his passion project. A decade had passed in between to lend to the story the desired perspective. “I didn’t want to be caught up with the sensationalism. But the emotion behind it was precious. There is a funny story about his legendary photographer. He was apparently smiling big. The photographer told him that you can’t smile like that for a passport picture. So he was holding back his laughter. He is the opposite of what you expect of a military man - fun, cosmopolitan, sunshine, loved Arnold Schwarzenegger films, and liked Sufi music. We went ahead and constructed all of this in the first 35 minutes of the film. It shows who the man was. The first half might feel like Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na… We wanted to show all of this because in the second half when you see him fighting in Kargil, when you see him at Taj, you see more than a hero. You see the man who was one of us.”
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