Sonu Sood:The first director I ever met was JP Dutta, but I got a chance to work with him only now, in Paltan

Sonu Sood, who stars in Paltan, talks to us about working in the war drama, which is directed by veteran filmmaker JP Dutta.

Actor Sonu Sood is happy with the purple patch in his career. He has three biggies in hand — Manikarnika with Kangana Ranaut; Simmba with Ranveer Singh; and Paltan, a multi-starrer with director JP Dutta.

Sonu Sood, who stars in JP Dutta’s war film Paltan, also has Simmba and Manikarnika in his kitty.

Sonu tells us excitedly, “I started my journey from Delhi, Connaught Place, where I got my first portfolio made. I would go to different offices and hunt for those columns in the newspapers so that I could get to know where I could give those pictures. I didn’t know a single soul [in Bollywood]. Somewhere, God has been kind, and that’s why I have been able to make a mark for myself in movies.”

Paltan will see him team up with actors Arjun Rampal, Suniel Shetty and Harshvardhan Rane, among others.

Talking about how it was working in a war drama, the actor shares, “It was really exciting. Actually, JP Dutta was the first director whom I had met [in Mumbai]. He promised that if he made a war film, we would work together. But he went on to make other cinema [movies in other genre], and we couldn’t work [together].”

Sonu further shares, “However, when he narrated to me [the story of] Paltan, I knew that this was the film I always wanted to do. Playing a soldier, and getting into the uniform gives you a high. I thoroughly enjoyed the experience.”

Paltan is set in the backdrop of 1962 Indo-China war, and recreating those sequences was a task. Sonu reveals, “First of all, in period films, there are language and body language barriers. When you are representing someone from the Army, who has made India proud, you have to play [enact] it well. The soldier, who has fought for the country, should feel proud that someone has done justice to his character.”

The actor adds, “I did want to talk to the soldier that I was playing, but JP Dutta had lots of notes and pictures from his family. I wanted to give [something] of my own self also.”

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