Casting for a historical drama is an exhausting job, and when the show clashes with another production set in the same era, it becomes twice as hard. Casting director Kavish Sinha spent months staring at a wall full of faces, looking to match figures from the Indian freedom movement with credible actors, as he worked on Nikkhil Advani’s Freedom at Midnight. Over the past few weeks, the ensemble cast was unveiled to the fans—Jubilee (2023) actor Sidhant Gupta stars as Jawaharlal Nehru, Chirag Vohra and Rajendra Chawla take on the roles of Mahatma Gandhi and Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel respectively.

Sinha says zeroing in on the faces for the screen adaptation of Dominique Lapierre and Larry Collins’ acclaimed book of the same name was daunting. But having an understanding collaborator in Advani eased matters. “Nikkhil sir knows exactly what he wants. I had luckily read the book in school. In Rocket Boys, casting was easier because they were scientists people know a little less about. But people have strong references of Nehru, Gandhi, Sardar Patel, and Sarojini Naidu. We’ve seen their videos, we couldn’t have gone wrong,” he states.