Piyush Sahdev who is out on bail in a rape case, has no qualms that his commander-in-chief character Abu Fazl in Colors’ historical Dastaan-E-Mohabbat Salim Anarkali, is yet to open up.
“It is always better to unravel each and every character at the right pace. If all come on board, sometimes things become a hotchpotch. So the makers (Writer’s Galaxy) have correctly first emphasised on Salim (Shaheer Sheikh), Anarkali (Sonarika Bhadoria), Akbar (Shahbaaz Khan) and other principle characters . I am sure the time for my poet cum warrior character will come. After all, Abu Fazal had written Ain-i-Akbari.”
Piyush claims to have got into the character of the warrior in quick time. “I learnt horse riding in just four days flat before our Jaisalmer shoot where I had to ride a stallion. Normally the same process takes around 15 days.”
Piyush started out with a character role in Har Ghar Kuch Kehta Hai. Since then he has done leads in Meet Mila De Rabba, Sapne Suhane Ladakpan Ke and more recently Devanshi.
“It is also not easy to wear those cumbersome costumes and handle the 8-10 kg swords again on horse back. But since we get so imbibed in our character, these minor irritants don’t irk so much,” he conveys.
Piyush also bats for historicals saying, “This genre is needed, for it makes the young generation aware about our great history. After Mughal-E-Azam, no one had tried to re-tell the epic love story of Salim and Anarkali. So Producer Anirudh Pathak and Colors took it upon themselves to tell the youth of this star crossed romance.”
Prior to this Piyush has done mytho as well i.e .Devon Ke Dev … Mahadev where he played Lord Ram.
Looking ahead, Piyush is hungry for performance-oriented roles which give him something to do as an actor. “My last negative avatar in Beyhadh has been a benchmark for me, where I took a proper narration to enable me dowhat my character graph required. I enjoyed that bit more than my above lead roles.”
Best of luck, Piyush!!
