Sushant Singh Rajput talks about playing Mahendra Singh Dhoni on screen

From lead actor on television show to Indian skipper on screen, Sushant Singh Rajput has come a long way. Playing Captain Cool Mahendra Singh Dhoni can unnerve anyone, but Sushant is a picture of calm.
Intimidated? "I'm not", he insists, "I'm not looking at anything until I wrap up my work on the film. I only get scared once it's all done."

He explains the process behind his craft. "I could see all that I wanted to understand in the story and found it very intriguing. That's also exactly what happened with Detective Byomkesh Bakshy! as well. I had the most five obvious references already in place, but I wanted to go beyond that. Learning the way how one talks, or their mannerisms – are all very easy things to do. The complicated thing to do is to stop the momentum of your thinking and beginning to believe that the character we are playing isn't us – the real self. I am doing this film to just understand the character. Not to look like him or because of the fear of being compared, its just done for the sheer excitement of understanding someone else's psyche. If there are frames and mannerisms that remind me that this is me, Sushant the person, I have failed."

While Sushant has always been a cricket fanatic (one of his sisters was a national level player), his outlook toward the game changed when he started practising to play Dhoni. He reminds you, "I played a failed cricket coach in Kai Po Che, too. Nut then you take a step back and realise that the things you've been doing all your life can be done in different ways. That is surreal. I've played cricket all my life. And for the last six months, I practised everyday trying to understand how the game is played. And when I play now, it is a completely different feeling. I am watching the ball like I have never watched it before. That day, I realised that this is what I strive for!"