Every day has been a new challenge: Aditya Redij on playing King Bamani
Actor Aditya Redji is already receiving a positive response after the first episode of his new show Porus hit the small screen. The show, produced by Siddharth Kumar Tewary’s Swastik Production, is based on the Battle of Hydaspes and Aditya plays the role of Porus’s father in the show.
Talking about the challenges he faced for playing the role of King Bamani of Paurav Rashtra, he says, ” Every day is a new challenge, whether it is wearing 15 kilos of costumes and carrying a six kilos sword along with it. Wearing heavy costumes, carrying a heavy sword and then doing an action sequence on a horse is not an easy job. Every day it has been a tough job, not just physically but mentally too because the character demands intensity which is mentally exhausting. Sometimes we have to do emotional scenes for continuous two-three days with the costumes. It’s challenging but when we are seeing the outcome on-screen, it makes us feel very happy.”
The coastline of Thailand has been passed off as river Jhelum recalls a special day during shoot.
“I remember that we were shooting on an island for a sequence. We were running against time. We had to shoot in the daylight and it used to get dark very soon. It used to rain heavily. I remember Rahul Tewary was directing our action sequence which was being filmed between me and Gurpreet, who is playing the role of Ambhiraj. We finished the action sequence in around three hours. We used to shoot in multiple units and used to compete with each other for delivering better quantity and quality work. They were really impressed with the kind of results our action sequence had given which was quite satisfying for us,” says the actor.
The show also stars actors such as Laksh, Rati Pandey, Praneet Bhatt and Gurpreet Singh. Aditya enjoyed bonding with these actors on the sets and feels he has earned friends for a long time.
“The entire star cast is very friendly, they don’t have any attitude problem. All of us have been good friends from a long time now. We support each other. We all are staying far away from our families. So we are there for each other emotionally throughout,” says the actor and adds, “It’s been amazing working with all of them.”
The actor is all in praise for the show, which has given him an opportunity to learn something new with the passing time.
“It’s been a superb experience and I got to learn a lot of things. We have been given a lot of time to prepare for the role. We have been shooting for months. We have been given underwater training in Thailand. We have learnt sword fighting and horse riding which was completely a different experience for us. It was quite exciting. I don’t think, I had to prepare myself so much for playing a role like the way I have done for this one,” he says.
Aditya, show lives in Mumbai, has been shooting away from his family for some time in Umbergaon. However, with the co-operation of his wife, things have become easy for them.
“I have to manage because of the demand of my work. My wife Natasha (Mohan Sharma) is also very understanding and I am very lucky to have her. She is there throughout to support me. Sometimes when I am in a dilemma, she encourages me to focus on my work,” he says.
The actor, was also part of Colors’ show Laado, which has now returned for the second season. He feels happy that the show, which has a social message has come back for the audience.
” It feels really nice and I would like to wish Meghna (Malik) all the best. She is a wonderful actress and I have learned a lot from her as an actor. I would like to wish her and her team all the best,” he says.