Shriyam Bhagnani recalls intense 9-month training to transform into sumo wrestler for Sumo Didi, says people treated her differently after weight gain

Shriyam Bhagnani trained seven to eight hours daily for nine months to portray sumo wrestler Hetal Dave in Sumo Didi.

Actor Shriyam Bhagnani took on one of the biggest challenges of her career with Sumo Didi, which marks her first film in a leading role. Having previously appeared in films such as Baaghi 2 and Aap Jaisa Koi, as well as the series City of Dreams 2, Shriyam now finds herself at the centre of a women-led sports biopic. The film follows the story of Hetal Dave, India's first female sumo wrestler, and required Shriyam to undergo an intense physical transformation to portray her on screen.

Shriyam Bhagnani's stills from Sumo Didi.

In an exclusive interview with Hindustan Times, Shriyam spoke about the nine months of training that went into preparing for the role, the challenges of playing a real-life person and the responsibility of carrying a women-led film. She also opened up about the film's long journey to its release and how her experiences in the industry have shaped her career choices.

On the pressure of playing a real-life sportsperson

For Shriyam, getting her first leading role in a women-led film was a big opportunity. However, the fact that it was a biopic about a real person brought with it a different kind of responsibility. She explained, "Getting a lead film is one thing, and getting a biopic, to play a real-life person, is another thing. And that too, someone who is alive and very similar to your age, so the comparison can happen very easily. So the pressure wasn't that I was leading a film; it was that her story is so powerful and unique that it needed to be done justice. There are so many sports films that have been made, but this sport is so different, and the story is so different that it needed to be told in a certain way."

On gaining weight and the risk of being stereotyped

Shriyam siad, "I had also gained and lost weight for other projects. Growing up, I watched actors like Aamir Khan and Johnny Depp, and I felt it was a normal process for an actor to go through this physical transformation. But once you mature, you realise that there are people who would probably not perceive you well when you are a different body type or weight. That comes in much later, and it happened after I gained the weight and the shoot had begun. When we were travelling to different places, I could see people behaving very differently with me because of that."

"I was under contract for 9-10 months and couldn't sign anything else. So if any audition was coming, I had to tell them that I couldn't take up that part and that we would take something else up. They would try to warn me, to a certain extent scare me also, saying, 'Don't give something so much time, bharosa nahi hai iss industry ka, kuch bhi ho sakta hai (You can't trust this industry; anything can happen).' And I had already changed my body type for a couple of projects that got shelved a week before filming. They were all coming from their own good places, but these things happened," she added.

On the nine months of training and performing stunts

Shriyam's preparation for Sumo Didi went beyond gaining weight. She underwent several hours of training every day, including weight training, yoga, physiotherapy, sumo and judo. She also stressed that the physical training seen in the film was performed by her without the use of AI or editing.

"Everything was real. There's no AI or editing. Everything you see in the film, I have done it, including pushing that truck. There were a lot of hours of training over nine months, every single day. I would say 7-8 hours of training every day, including a weight training session, a yoga session, a session with my physiotherapist, and then sumo and judo training. All of these used to happen every day.

"In every way possible, like how kids are born in nine months, in those nine months an athlete in me was born. Some of the things I couldn't believe I had done, and when I look back, I don't think I can do it again. But in that moment, I think the story is so powerful and Hetal ma'am's fate is so powerful that it actually translated into the stunts that happened so beautifully on their own," Shriyam added.

On the film's long wait for release

While the film took time to reach audiences, Shriyam said the wait was not entirely difficult, as it continued to find opportunities at film festivals. She also kept herself busy with other projects and explored a different professional avenue during those years.

Shriyam said, "It was difficult. For the first couple of years, it wasn't so difficult because it usually takes that time for a film to be completed, so you are prepared. And in the second year, it also went to film festivals, so it felt like a good thing. Things kept happening with the film. I also did another project with Netflix, and I kept working throughout the time and started an entirely different profession as an angel investor in these four years."

She added, "There's this podcaster in the US, Theo Von, who mentioned the film out of nowhere. In film festivals, we got nominated and got extra shows, which usually doesn't happen with films unless they are good films. So by that time, we knew how the film would be perceived. But the impatience was there because we wanted our country to see it. I think now, when it's happening, people will agree that it's a very proud story for them."

About Sumo Didi

Directed by Jayant Rohatgi, Sumo Didi stars Shriyam Bhagnani as Hetal, who challenges societal expectations and body-shaming to pursue her dream of making a name for herself in sumo wrestling. Coming from a conservative Marwari family, Hetal faces resistance and criticism because of her unconventional career choice but remains determined to prove herself. The film follows her journey as she trains in the sport and travels to Japan to pursue her ambitions. It also stars Chaitanya Sharma, Anubha Fatehpura, Nitesh Pandey and Raghav Dhir. The film premiered at international film festivals, including the Tokyo International Film Festival, before releasing on ZEE5 on October 23, 2026.