Actor Vicky Kaushal said on Tuesday he initially thought he was not good-looking enough for the role of Field Marshal Sam Manekshaw in filmmaker Meghna Gulzar’s Sam Bahadur. At the film’s trailer launch event held at the Manekshaw Centre in Mumbai, Kaushal said Gulzar told him about her desire to make the biopic on Manekshaw during the shooting of their 2018 film Raazi.
I remember when Meghna and I were working on Raazi, and then during a shooting schedule in Patiala, she told me what she wanted to do next. And she said she wants to make a film on Sam Manekshaw,” Kaushal said.
My mother and father are both from Punjab and through them, I have heard a lot about him. But I didn’t know how he looked. So during that conversation, I secretly Googled him and saw his photo. I said, ‘He is very handsome and I will not get this role.’ But I have to thank Meghna for giving me the role of this handsome person,” he added.
The trailer was launched in the presence of Army Chief General Manoj Pande. Vicky Kaushal co-actors Sanya Malhotra, Fatima Sana Shaikh, director Gulzar, and producer Ronnie Screwvala also attended the event.
Sam Bahadur will span Manekshaw’s career of over 40 years, including significant milestones, from fighting in World War II to being the Chief of Army Staff during the 1971 Indo-Pakistan war, which led to the creation of Bangladesh, according to the makers.
