Your first solo hero film, ‘Aa Dekhen Zara’, didn’t fare well. Are you keeping your fingers crossed for ‘Jail’?

We’ve all worked very hard and I’m confident that the movie will be received well. It doesn’t matter if it’s a single-hero film or has an ensemble cast, if the script is good and the film is made well, it works. Why unnecessarily surround oneself with negative vibes then?

What did you bring back from your visit to Thane jail?

I was psychologically prepared to portray Parag but the one thing missing was to witness that life. The jail was also the trigger point for me—I saw a few faces that I felt would be apt to portray Parag. I met a man in the trial barrack who looked like he belonged to a good family and I sought permission to speak to him. When I asked him in Hindi why he has been convicted, he instead replied in English, telling me how he is fighting false charges. But what affected me the most was the numbness and look of resignation on the faces of a few prisoners who had been imprisoned for life. I realised that these people are more dangerous inside than outside the prison because now, they have nothing more to lose.

Did you feel you took home Parag’s emotional baggage?

We shot the whole film chronologically so that I could move through the emotional graph of the character. For the 42 days that I shot as a convict on the sets in Karjat, we would work all day from 7 am till midnight and would take only a 45-minute break for meals. This period, I feel, was not enough for me to disconnect from the character and it eventually took its toll on me. I realised I didn’t talk to my family or crew unless I needed to. Finally, my mom too noticed the change and came to meet me on the sets. It took a vacation for me to recover.

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