SANGEETA YADAV catches up with Amit Sadh to talk about how intense his character in the web series Breathe is
Breathe is only five episodes old and has already become famous. The second web series by Amazon Prime Original after Inside Edge is making waves and the Koi Po Che actor Amit Sadh is being lauded for his acting. He plays a cop in a constant haze of alcohol.
Breathe abhi baki hai, there is lots more to come. But I had to breathe in the character 24X7 to do justice to my role. Kabir Sawant is a cop who is guilt-ridden over the death of his child. He also struggles to accept that his wife has divorced him. He is a broken man with a damaged soul who is out to harm himself. It is disturbing to play such an intense character. You can’t switch on and switch off easily. One can’t fake such a role,” Sadh says and tells you that the credit goes to director Mayank Sharma for writing such an intense character.
To prepare for the web series, Sadh adopted his favourite actor Marlon Brando’s style of approach. “There were two options — either act or live the character each day. I don’t know any other way to do this except live it. I wrote about 10 pages to understand the character before I actually got down to the acting. I studied the character like Marlon Brando did for his film Streetcar Named Desire for which he actually studied a gorilla to play this character,” Sadh shares.
Though Sawant’s character is intense, it was essay this role for Sadh since there are similarities between Sawant and Sadh. “There is a certain journey of Sawant and mine that resonated because I’ve lived through some of the challenges that Sawant faces in my personal life. That inspired me to take up this role. I feel like I have gone back to the times when I lived on the footpath, people cheated me, was filled with anger and fighting with everyone, turned to alcohol and did drugs and even attempted to suicide four times when I was 16-18 years old. Today, I’m at peace with myself because I willed myself to be happy. I read books and met people. My mentor, psychiatrists, friends and well-wishers have had a hand in helping me achieve my present mental state. Acting too helped to heal. Now I’ve more empathy, compassion and forgiveness for people. I just hope that I’ve done a good job of playing Sawant,” Sadh says.
When Sadh is not busy acting, he spends time saving other people with suicidal tendencies by counselling them. “I consciously help people by just listening to them. I feel this is my calling. I keep meeting people through references an on social media platforms. I feel people need to be heard. I was not that lucky — people didn’t hear me. I tell people that if an idiot like me can turn his life around, they too can. I share a relationship with them which is beyond human needs nd expectations.
“The biggest problem in facing the youth is suicide and the pressure to fit in. When we get successful, we forget where we come from. We forget that we too spoke broken English, struggled to pay rent and faced hardships. We lack kindness and gratitude. For me, my failure is my success. I was never a struggling actor, I’m a struggling human being. I don’t feel pressurised by anyone because it is my journey even when I was working as a security guard at Benetton, 20 years back in South Extension, Delhi. For me, the pressure was for survival. You have to work hard for it. This world needs love, compassion, empathy and people need to be heard,” Sadh opines.
As soon as the shooting for the web series was over, Sadh had another project in hand — Gold starring Akshay Kumar. The movie is set to release on August 15, 2018.
“It was easy for me to get out of playing Sawant because as soon as I finished shooting for Breathe, I started training for the movie Gold — which is based on first gold India won in Hockey at the 1948 Summer Olympics. I would have to get up at 4:30 am to train for three-and-a-half and learn how to play the game. I had to work my ascent and look. I also had to lose weight,” Sadh says.