Actor Sushant Singh Rajput, who took the plunge into film from the small screen with unconventional roles, says he doesn’t have career goals.
He will next be playing Mahendra Singh Dhoni on the silver screen in M.S. Dhoni: The Untold Story.
“The one thing I have in common with Dhoni, and I realised it when I started filming, is that I don’t obsess about the future. I don’t have goals... I don’t take myself seriously and that is what drives me,” Singh Rajput said at the India Today Mind Rocks Youth Summit in New Delhi on Saturday.
“It’s the journey that matters more than the destination. Right now is very important,” he added.
Talking about M.S. Dhoni: The Untold Story, Singh Rajput said: “We are not trying to glorify Dhoni. We are not [glamourising] anything. Right from his birth to the 2011 World Cup six that he hit, we are showing everything.”
“We are punctuating the belief Dhoni had in himself. There was not even an iota of doubt that if this thing doesn’t happen, then there is a Plan B. The Plan B is to go back to Plan A. One should not dream or work to achieve something to get a high status in society.
“You work for your dream because that’s the only thing that drives you. That’s the only thing that keeps you awake for that extra five minutes and wakes you up five minutes early in the morning — ‘I want to do it and I will do it’.”
The actor is being applauded for his portrayal as Dhoni even before the film’s release. And Singh Rajput says the mantra for giving the role his best was “total immersion”.
“Watching videos for hours and hours to a point that subconsciously you pick points and nuances. After three to four months into the preparation, people used to say that ‘You actually have something in common with Dhoni’ and I used to think that I am doing it right,” he said.
Singh Rajput learnt some of cricket’s tricks from former Indian cricketer Kiran More, who he said was a tough taskmaster who treated him like a professional cricketer rather than an actor.
He even met Dhoni for the preparation.
Recalling his meeting with Dhoni, the actor said: “The first time, I asked him to tell me his story. The second time we met, I had prepared a set of 250 hypothetical multiple choice questions to understand him better. And the third time we met, I asked him about his strengths.”
Directed by Neeraj Pandey, M.S. Dhoni: The Untold Story is set to release in the UAE on September 29. And Singh Rajput says there are lot of untold stories that the film will highlight.
