While production timelines in the film industry are often breached, the implications of a delay in filming Swatantrya Veer Savarkar significantly impacted Randeep Hooda, who took on the Herculean task of shedding 32 kilos for the offering. A defined deadline to commence and conclude the film had been contractually set, but “obviously that did not happen”. For Hooda, while the decision of his producers to back out of the film may have taken an emotional toll, it was his physical health that also took a hit. “This time around, I was underweight for one-and-a-half years,” he says, while drawing parallels with the programme he previously followed while taking on a similar task for Sarbjit (2016). “When the previous producers shelved the movie, I had lost all my muscle mass. I recall passing out and tumbling off [my] horse. My calf was bent at a right angle to my thigh, which makes me realise how weak I may have been.”

On regaining consciousness, Hooda recalls “pushing my leg back in place”, and subsequently spending the following eight weeks in bed, indulging in “revenge eating”. “That’s what happens when you deprive yourself of food for a long time. I couldn’t even walk. Then, I took help from [a] physiotherapist, and started practicing walking on the treadmill under water. I had a sequence to execute in the film where my character, Mr Savarkar, escapes in France. This training was essential for that.”