'Paatal Lok' actor Ishwak Singh, who will be reprising his character of physicist Dr Vikram Sarabhai in the second season of 'Rocket Boys', said he spent long hours doing the research for his role.The entire series is based on the life of Vikram Ambalal Sarabhai, an astronomer and physicist, who had a major contribution towards the development of nuclear power in India and in fact he is known as Father of the Indian Space Programme.
Bringing him alive on screen was not at all an easy task and thus Ishwak read a lot of books about him and attended lectures also.He said: "I prepared for Vikram Sarabhai with a multipronged approach. I wanted to know him inside out, right from his childhood days in Ahmedabad to his education in Cambridge, the various aspects of his personal and professional life."
"It was like going back to school as I ended up reading science text books, geeked out on lectures by Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) professor Walter Lewin, studied about Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), the making of the bomb and modern history."
Ishwak worked in various web series and movies. He made his debut with the film 'Raanjhanaa' and later did movies such as 'Aligarh', 'Tamasha' and was also seen in the first season of 'Rocket Boys'.The actor added that while doing all the preparation work he kept reading the script too and maintained a connection with the story so that nothing is missed out and he can portray the great scientist with perfection.
"I also studied the basics of rocket science and its evolution and that's how I got to know about the pioneers. But while I was going about doing prep work I'd keep coming back to the script which was sacrosanct for me and was carved out so meticulously by Abhay Pannu."
"He had done immense research and had interwoven the highlights of Vikram Sarabhai's life beautifully in the story."Singh said it took months to work on the character. "Over a period of 18 months, we compared notes and hand crafted the character almost like a sculpture.
What encapsulates Vikram Sarbhai is that he was a man of science and that's how I played him," he concluded.'Rocket Boys 2' will be streaming on Sony Liv.Apart from 'Rocket Boys 2', Ishwak will be seen in an upcoming spy thriller 'Berlin', which is written and directed by Atul Sabharwal and features Aparshakti Khurana.