With Nikkhil Advani’s The Revolutionaries dropping on Amazon Prime Video today, Rohit Saraf is stepping into a role that takes him away from the romantic, urban characters audiences have come to associate him with. As freedom fighter Sachindranath Sanyal, Saraf had to undergo an intensive physical and mental transformation to inhabit the resilience of a young revolutionary living under extraordinary circumstances. 

Saraf says the physical transformation was only the starting point. What mattered more was making the strength feel intrinsic to Sachin. “The physique was actually just one part of it. I knew very early on that if I only looked stronger, it wouldn’t necessarily make me believable as Sachin. I had to feel different in my body. There was a certain sturdiness I associated with him, not just physical strength, but the sense of someone who could withstand discomfort. These were young men living under extraordinary circumstances. They were constantly on the move, training, hiding, fighting, surviving with very little, and still carrying on. I wanted some of that resilience to become instinctive rather than something I had to perform,” he says.