Emraan Hashmi's Ground Zero opened to brilliant reviews in theatres on April 25. The actor has been garnering praise for his restrained performance as the BSF officer Narendra Nath Dhar Dubey, who led an operation against terrorist Rana Tahir Nadeem, better known as Ghazi Baba, in 2003. Ghazi Baba was the mastermind of the 2001 Parliament attack and he was killed in 2003.
Ground Zero released in theatres at a time when Kashmir is grappling with the deadliest attack of recent time. NDTV sat with the Team Ground Zero to unravel the behind-the-scene stories of the film days before the Pahalgam attack. NDTV asked Emraan Hashmi about the challenges he faced while portraying a real-life character, specifically a BSF officer where the exterior demeanour needs to be synchronized with the psychological state.
Emraan Hashmi spoke about perfecting the body language with the help of BSF officers and Mr Dubey. "Well, as you said, there's an external world. Because it's a visual medium. So, you have the externals of the silhouette, the body language, the disciplinary stance, the decorum, the way they speak, the protocols the officer has," Emraan Hashmi told NDTV.
"This is the first time we are making a film about the world of BSF, presenting in front of the audience. So, being very cognizant and sensitive about the fact that we are putting something out there. They are representative of the world. We have done our research and ground work too," Emraan added.
Pointing out the most "difficult" part of the process was assimilating the psychological state of the officer. "The most difficult part was the emotional and psychological state of the officer; That too back in an era when Kashmir was seeing its most turbulent time; when there was rampant insurgency, 70 jawans were killed at a point blank range by the terrorists. There was fear, uncertainty and you have to play that with conviction and take yourself back to the moment," Emraan told NDTV.
"The good thing was I was in touch with Mr Dubey. In most of my films, I played fictional characters where imagination run wild. But here, I had to perform within confines and distil the personality in the performance. So, access to him, access to the BSF - almost like hand- holding and taking us through the entire exercise of making us soldiers to play on screen," Emraan Hashmi summed up his preparation process.
Ground Zero is directed by Tejas Prabha Vijay Deoskar and produced by Ritesh Sidhwani and Farhan Akhtar, under Excel Entertainment. Sai Tamhankar and Zoya Hussain play pivotal roles in the film along with Emraan Hashmi.
