Without a godfather and despite the obvious comparison to brother Vicky Kaushal, Sunny Kaushal managed to stand apart with his performances. One such riveting piece of work he delivered in 2020 was in Kabir Khan’s The Forgotten Army — Azaadi Ke Liye. As the actor secures a nomination in the Best Actor (Series) category at the mid-day and Radio City Hitlist OTT Awards, he discusses the process of playing a part that had no reference point in history. “The idea was to learn more about our history and do justice to the struggle of our freedom fighters. Bose Babu’s [Subhash Chandra Bose] stories and cinematic outings [on the same subject] were never a reference point because it was never told from his perspective,” says the actor of the series that was inspired from Khan’s 1996 documentary. With barely a week to prepare, Kaushal began the boot camp. “I believe in going through the journey of the character to understand his motive,” he says.

Though it opened to lukewarm reviews, the show did well as Amazon Prime Video’s first-ever mini-series. “An artiste must respect people’s opinions. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but I don’t get affected by it. I thanked both supporters and detractors. [While] I received immense validation with this series, I could never gauge the true measure of what the show did for me. A month after the show launched, the world went into a lockdown. The subsequent months were spent in jhadoo, pocha and bartan [sweeping, mopping, and washing vessels],” says Kaushal, adding that he has a few projects in the pipeline.

Cast your vote for the Hitlist OTT Awards