Sunny Singh on playing Laxman in Adipurush, sharing screen with Prabhas: ‘A huge deal for me, hamari toh aukaat hi nahi hai’

Sunny Singh started his career as an actor over a decade ago along with Kartik Aryan and Nushrratt Bharuccha; the three of them were a part of Luv Ranjan’s mega successful mass entertainers likes Pyar Ka Punchnama 1 and 2 and Sonu Ke Titu Ki Sweety.

Sunny is now “super excited and has goosebumps” about the biggest role of his career as he plays Laxman in Om Raut’s magnum opus Adipurush, the retelling of Ramayana, with Prabhas and Kriti Sanon. The actor, in this interview with indianexpress.com, shares how he is missing his mother who saw him prepare for Laxman but passed away eight months before the film’s release.

“It is a very special film, an emotional journey for me, so I have goosebumps and I am very excited for the film. My family and friends are waiting for it with bated breath,” says Sunny.

When asked about what his mental space is like now that Adipurush is finally releasing in theatres after a delay of over six months, Sunny says, “I can’t call it nervousness, maybe I am jittery, as I want to know if the audience will love my character. They have already seen the posters and trailers and they have been positive so far. Wherever I have gone, people have told me that they are happy that I did this role and that they have loved my look. Recently I was in Bhopal for a shoot when a family came to meet me. They had tears in their eyes and came and hugged me. They had a poster of Adipurush and told me how much they are looking forward to the film. I am feeling a kind of connection with the audience this time over.”

Sunny reveals that when Raut approached him for work initially, he didn’t tell him about the film. “When Om sir had first called me for a meeting, I didn’t know yeh kaunsi film hai. In the second meeting, he told me that it is going to be a very big film and I have to play Lord Laxman. I was feeling very lucky when he offered me the role, humaari toh aukaat hi nahi hai, yeh karna toh badi baat hai (This is beyond my ken, it is a huge honour). I was very emotional at that time. From my childhood I used to love Ramayan, I am a very spiritual person and I love all the characters from the story, so I was elated to know that I’ll be a part of this film. Om sir was very clear what he wanted, have precise instructions to me on how he wants my look to be how our dialogues will be.”

Talking about the most challenging part of Adipurush, Sunny says, “I have done romantic films where I played characters from cities like Mumbai or Delhi, so the way I speak is very ‘every day’ like. For Adipurush, as it is an ancient epic, we had to speak and act in a very different way. However the tough part was that I was also saying my dialogues in Telugu for the Telugu version and I had never done that before, so I had to learn the language from scratch and I did it with conviction. We have done quite a bit of action in a film as well, action director Ramazan Bulut made us prep a lot, he did action direction for Tanhaji as well. It was tough because I was injured at that time. We had prepped for over a month and a half and we were supposed to start shooting action sequences in a few days. We somehow worked it out and it was a big learning experience for me.”

Sunny shares that he has a sibling-like relationship with Prabhas who plays Lord Ram in the film. “Adipurush is also special to me because I got to work with Prabhas who is now like an elder brother to me. We hit it off from day one and he would always be around for me. So when we shot some scenes together, we used to get emotional as we felt like two brothers going through that situation in reality. Many times we would get emotional while saying our lines. There were times we had to do scenes without saying a single line, by just looking at each other. We also had to imagine a lot because we shot on a blue screen so that was a constant challenge and a very different experience for all of us.”

Sunny has been in the movie business for over a decade now, and even after dishing big box office hits with Luv Ranjan, he hasn’t been on the map as such. When asked if he feels validated now that he’s been a part of Om Raut’s epic, he says that through out his career, he has only focused work. He says, “I was very young when I decided that I wanted to be a hero, I was a child. My father has been a stunt director, so it could be an attraction or manifestation that I became an actor. I was aware that there will be a struggle and I have struggled and as I went on I met Luv (Ranjan) sir who is like a big brother to me. Luv sir, Kartik (Aaryan) and Nushrratt (Bharuccha) worked very hard and believed in each other and we saw the results in not one but three films that became so successful. It is the success of these films that has brought me here, and I met Om sir. He is a very sweet person and very down to earth, I got to learn a lot from him as well. Throughout my career I have played very different roles in very different films like Ujda Chaman, Sonu Ke Titu Ki Sweety and now Adipurush is a very big film for me, it is a magnum opus.”

“Ever since I became an actor it was important for me to keep working, do a certain number of films every year and I have been fortunate to be able to do that. Other than that I have always loved a very simple life, I continue to do so, I don’t go to parties, unless it is a very close friend of family. I am a family person, I do my work, return home early, max by 9 pm and spend my time with my family. That’s my life, I am here to work and I focus on that. So it doesn’t matter to me if a film is a hit or a flop because sometimes very good films don’t work and one can never judge what people will like or not like. We have observed the industry very closely, but you know that people have taken note of your performance and you have gained a lot of love and respect.”

Sunny is excited that his family will see the film finally, but he says he’ll miss his mother who passed away last year. “My mother was very happy that I was a part of the film that’s based on Ramayana, she had seen me prepare hard for it, she had seen me work on it for months at a go. She was very excited to see me as Laxman in Adipurush but unfortunately I lost her eight months ago, but papa mummy kahin nahi jaate, woh hamesha apne saath hi rehte hai, so she’ll bless me, she’ll be very happy to know that Adipurush is in theatres now.”