Interview | Mrinal Dutt on working with Randeep Hooda in Swantantrya Veer Savarkar: ‘He’s super passionate’

Actor Mrinal Dutt has been in the industry for a while now and has played varied roles in different mediums. Hailing from the capital city of Delhi, Dutt started his career from scratch and has a fair share of projects such as Private Investigator, Tuneega Tuneega, Roomies among others, under his belt in his decade-long career.

Mrinal will next be seen in Randeep Hooda’s Swatantra Veer Savarkar. The movie is based on the life and times of the iconic freedom fighter, who has often been seen as a controversial figure in Indian history.

While Randeep plays the titular character, Dutt essays the role of Indian revolutionary Madan Lal Dhingra. Before the big release of the movie, Dutt spoke with WION and shared his experience of playing the role of a freedom fighter, working with Randeep Hooda and more.

Here is an excerpt of the chat:

WION: In Swatantra Veer Savarkar, you are playing the role of Madan Laal Dhingraji. This will be the first time when you will be seen playing the role of an Indian revolutionary. How did you prepare for the role, tell us the backstory.

Mrinal: So, when I was selected or when I was called for this role, I didn’t know much about him. Then I started my research to learn more about his personality and the more I got to know about this person, I was blown away by the fact that how little we knew about him. We know about Bhagat Singh, Chandrasekharan Singh and Udham Singh. But he’s the man who started this, Bhagat Singh was inspired by him.

What Bhagat Singh did, he did 20 years before him. He (Madan Laal Dhingra) killed Curzon Willey. Following on his footsteps, Bhagat Singh killed John Saunders. A certain amount of material about him, his life and how and what kind of person he was was available. So, I needed to sort of tap into that. I read about him through as many sources as I could. I spoke to my father, and my grandfather, and they knew more about him. I hope people will know about this about him after the film is released.