Playing role of former PM Atal was most challenging: Pankaj Tripathi

Lucknow, Jan 11  Bollywood actor Pankaj Tripathi, who has proved his acting prowess through many popular web series like Mirzapur and Criminal Justice, on Thursday said that playing the personality of Bharat Ratna Atal Bihari Vajpayee on the silver screen was the most challenging task of his film career.
In Lucknow for the launch of the song 'Hindu Tan Man' from the film 'Main Atal Hoon' based on the biography of the former Prime Minister, while talking to the reporters Pankaj said, "I never went to my acting guru in my 25 years of acting career in any role. In case of some problem, I used to call him for tips, but after knowing and understanding the character of Atal ji, when I faced any problem in playing it, I had to go to my acting teacher and give an additional two hours because there were many challenges."
He said, "This is not an imaginary personality. In other films, we play imaginary characters which the writer and director think about and tell us, but to play this huge personality, we had to think about how serious we have to be, how much mimicry we have to do, how much we have to imitate. It was a difficult challenge because I don't even know how to mimic."
The actor said, "To play this character, I had to have a long discussion with director Ravi that we have to capture his emotions and his thoughts. We have more of a personal personality than what we see on stage, which cannot be revealed to people."
"Ultimately as an actor I felt that I would capture his consciousness, capture his soul, capture his thoughts. Atal ji's expressions, his style of speaking, pauses were very interesting and I have tried to portray these emotions on screen. We know the difficult decisions of Atal ji and are familiar with his speeches, but in this film we have tried to bring his life journey on the film screen. I am confident that I will get the love of the audience," he said.
On a question asked regarding the release of the film on January 19, just before the consecration of Ram temple in Ayodhya, film director Ravi Jadhav said that the work of film production had started three years ago.
He said, "At that time no one knew when the shooting of the film would be completed and when it would be released. Earlier, the plan was to release the film on December 25 on the occasion of the birth anniversary of the former PM, but the release date had to be postponed to overcome the editing deficiencies."
He said that although the shooting of the film has been done in Atal's birthplace Agra, Bateshwar, Gwalior, Delhi and Mumbai, a major part of the shooting has been shot in his parliamentary constituency Lucknow where the entire film unit got the love of the people here.