Rohit Roy on Kargil Diwas: Unless you feel like a soldier, you’ll not be authentic in your performance

Actor Rohit Roy has donned the uniform in three projects — LOC: Kargil and Paltan (2018), and a television show Tujhpe Dil Kurbaan, and he says he had a sense of pride every single time.

In fact, he recalls that while shooting for LOC: Kargil, director JP Dutta didn’t allow any actor to wear casual clothes. “You feel like a solider on the front when working with him. The moment we reach the hotel, we get rid of our civil clothing and are always in uniform. I played a major in the film, so I was always in the uniform. The logic was very simple: Unless you feel like a soldier, be with them, see how they walk and talk, you’ll never be authentic in your performance,” says the 52-year-old.

During the entire shoot, Roy continues, all the actors called each other by their respective Army ranks.

“I’d not call Abhishek (Bachchan, co-star) by his name, I’d call him Captain. We’d cross real soldiers while going from one location to another, and salute them. Every actor wants to be part of a war story, it’s the closest you will get to playing a real life soldier,” adds Roy.

However, he realises that unlike films, the real life war didn’t have any retakes. The actor is in awe of these real-life heroes. He gushes and says he’d get goosebumps when he would hear stories about the war.

“For the TV show, we went to Arunachal Pradesh, close to where firing was going on then. I have felt gratitude towards the Armed Forces from the beginning. As a child, obviously we had the culture of Independence and Republic Day in school. Being in the midst of these people day in and day out, you wonder why civilians don’t follow even the simple rules given to us. When I’d sit and talk to the heroes of the Kargil war, there was no fear in them. They just said ‘it’s something we do’, saving the country.”

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