Randeep Hooda’s first memory of the “bikini killer” is from the time he was studying at the Motilal Nehru School of Sports in Sonepat Haryana, as a ten-year-old.
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“To play Raj (lover) in every movie has never been my ambition and it will never be”. Is every journalist the same? “I get involved with each film that I do”, he added.
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Randeep was dressed in his casual best, Charles looked at him with a long silence and then gave a thumbs up. As anticipation around the Randeep Hooda-starrer, produced by Raju Chadha, Amit Kapoor and Vikram Khakhar, increases, Prawaal says, “I’ve always maintained that it’s not a biopic on Charles, but on the famous prison break of 1986 and the people who were affected as their lives changed since that day”. Randeep and Prawaal also did a lot of research before making the film. “We can not play a character without empathizing with the person”, he said. Randeep vividly recalls filming in Udaipur – the unit shot inside a prison and once the doors closed, he felt like he was incarcerated for real. Never the job. Similarly, in this way we saw a few documentary footage of his. “We used to scare each other, saying, dekho Sobhraj aa gaya”, the actor says. Prawaal also met Sobhraj’s fellow inmates who are now living in places like Singapore, Thailand and Kerala, not to forget a few women who dated or loved him. We went for articles and documentaries which were made on him. “This was fulfilling for us and more helpful for us than people whom we met because they all spoke about a different person every time, which was very shocking”, added Randeep. “It feels like I’m meeting my sautan”, he laughs.
