Versatile Bollywood actor Jim Sarbh who is seen portraying Indian nuclear physicist Dr Homi J Bhabha, in SonyLIV’s biographical show ‘Rocket Boys’, feels that the ‘pressure’ was more to represent the ‘genius’, rather than representing somebody that others consider ‘great’.
‘Rocket Boys’ is a story of two extraordinary men– Dr Homi J Bhabha (played by Jim) and Dr Vikram Sarabhai (played by Ishwak Singh). The story is set around the three crucial decades (1940-60s) in the history of India and how the nation is moving towards being a strong, brave, and independent nation.
Season two is the story of independent India’s formative years, as the country is amidst turbulence with belligerent political hostility, changing hands of power within the country and international agencies keeping close watch on the country’s ambition.
The show is a thrilling narrative of the incredible life and times of Dr Bhabha, Dr Sarabhai, and Dr APJ Abdul Kalam, as they wade through challenges and difficulties on their mission to make India a nuclear nation. In an exclusive interaction, Jim talked about the sense of responsibility, interesting aspects of the character, etc.
Asked if there was a sense of responsibility while playing a national hero, Jim said, “The way I think about this is that- the hero doesn’t know he is going to be a national hero. He is just trying to solve problems. So, me thinking about what it means, in my opinion, is less interesting, than thinking about how to approach the scene, like someone much smarter than me, would approach the scene. I think the ‘pressure’ is more to represent the ‘genius’, and not to represent somebody that other people consider ‘great’. That’s up to other people to decide.”
On how much invested he was in the story, the ‘Raabta’ fame actor said, “I was extremely invested in the story. The team had done the research on what the character was like, and there was enough auxiliary reading to figure out whether they were right or wrong. Of course it’s a fictionalized show, so you are filling in the blueprint of what you think the conversation would have been like, because there is no way to know what the actual conversation was. You just know they were friends- Vikram and Homi.” “But mostly the kind of preparation that I did was to try to approach the scene in a way that is smarter than how I would be in that scene. The director and I, we took for granted that Homi Bhabha is much smarter than him and me- put together. So in order to try to represent that, we had to take very long sometimes to think how Homi would solve a problem, because we didn’t know how to solve the problem”, he said.
He added, “We had to take weeks and days,several workshops, and discuss, and have a back and forth. So a problem that took a couple of weeks to be solved by us, our hero–our protagonist took seconds to solve it. And that’s what makes our hero seem genius and smarter than everyone else, because the way he solved the problem was a lot faster than most people would do.”
Talking about the interesting aspects of ‘iconic’ character, Jim said, “There were many aspects. What does a person who is very good at their job but doesn’t take themselves too seriously, What’s a kind of person who is so talented at so many different spheres of life, not just one, What’s is the character be like who seems to be as good at politics, as he was at science. What’s it like to be a person who is good at handling people, but also has a very strong sense of who he is himself, and does not need appreciation of others to make or break his own character. Not that there’s nobody he didn’t appreciate. He very much valued Vikram and Nehru’s opinion.”
“So a character who has a very strong sense of himself, there are also other people whose opinion, and way of life he really valued and learned from. Homi Bhabha learned a lot from Pandit Nehru, and Vikram Sarabhai,” he said.
Jim also said that it feels wonderful for all the appreciation for ‘Rocket Boys’ season one. “What I think of these things are that-we would have done what we did anyway. and all of these other things are cherry on the top,” he added.
The ‘Taish’ fame actor said he wants to do comedy, action thriller and spy movies.
Created by Nikkhil Advani, Roy Kapur Films & Emmay Entertainment, it is produced by Siddharth Roy Kapur, Monisha Advani, Madhu Bhojwani,and written and directed by Abhay Pannu.
The show features an ensemble star cast– Arjun Radhakrishnan, Regina Cassandra, Rajit Kapur, Dibyendu Bhattacharya, Namit Das and Saba Azad in pivotal roles. It is streaming on Sony LIV. (UNI)
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