Kartik Aaryan on Physical and Mental Transformation for Bollywood Sports Drama ‘Chandu Champion’: ‘It’s all About Willpower’

variety.com:

Naman Ramachandran Bollywood star Kartik Aaryan has undergone a remarkable transformation for his latest film “Chandu Champion.” Directed by Kabir Khan (“’83”), the film is a biopic of Murlikant Petkar, who became India’s first Paralympics gold medalist in 1972.

Petkar served as a soldier in the 1965 India-Pakistan war and sustained injuries that left him physically impaired. He overcame these and became a champion sportsman across several disciplines. “There were so many skill sets that were required for the character, swimming, boxing, wrestling, and he [Petkar] was very good in all of them.

I had problems going into the deep end of the swimming pool, because I didn’t know how to swim professionally,” Aaryan told Variety. “And I never imagined that I would do a film where I would play a character who would be swimming like Murlikant Petkar used to.” The actor went through a dramatic physical transformation during a bootcamp that lasted 18 months, losing a significant percentage of his body fat for the role. “A lot of prep was required for the skill sets, for the body transformation, one needs to have a lot of patience, and a lot of mental balance.

I had never been in this situation – I was doing romantic films or comedy films. But this was the first time that I was doing something like this where I had to do a war sequence, I had to do wresting and whatnot,” Aaryan, whose recent hits include rom-com “Satyaprem Ki Katha” and horror-comedy “Bhool Bhulaiyaa 2,” said.