Exclusive- Ranveer Singh's trainer for '83 says actor 'was obsessed with getting the nuances right'

Ranveer Singh 's performance in ' 83 has been lauded by one and all. He played the captain of the Indian cricket team that went for the '83 World Cup- Haryana Hurricane Kapil Dev. While he practiced a lot to get into the physicality of the cricketer, it was even harder to get the techniques used by the cricketer right. In fact, Ranveer Singh practiced for days to get into the skin of Kapil Dev, and the latter also supervised him to get the film right. Now, his trainer Rajiv Mehra, who prepped him for the role, opened up about the actor's dedication.

Also read: '83 review: Kabir Khan and team deliver a sixer, film will make your heart swell with pride

In an exclusive conversation with us, Rajiv opened up about Ranveer's practice sessions and was all praises for him. He said, "He (Ranveer Singh) is such a person who will not settle for anything less than you know perfect. He used to come come to the group training session at Juhu and he used to practice with the boys till about 10 o'clock, so 8 to 10 we used to start two hours of practicing with the boys. Then when the boys left, he used to practice batting with me separately for an hour and a half. Then at about 11:30, we used to get done and then of course he had other stuff and things happening."

That's not all, he would return back to training again in the evening. Mehra added, "I used to see him again at four o'clock either at his house or wherever he was at that point. We used to start off with the gym, you know, training at the gym in the second half, where he exercised for injury prevention, for gaining power, or for gaining strength- that was the main focus in his exercise routine. Once that was done we used to get going with another round of bowling because he was so obsessed with bowling and getting the nuances correct, used to practice for another hour. We had a person who was recording every ball that and I'm sure he must be having lakhs and lakhs of video recording of his practice bowling sessions. And then we used to analyze every video for the next 30-40 seconds to one minute so that the next ball could be better. That is the kind of practice we did."

Also read: '83: Ranveer Singh charged 20 crores to play Kapil Dev, will take a share from the profits as well? 

Rajiv recalls how Ranveer would not let go of the character even while relaxing. He continued and said, "The best part of the training was when we used to actually, after all this practice and hard work and bowling and tiredness, get down inside the pool for about 40 minutes where of course I made him do a few laps for relaxation, but most of it was just sitting chatting, planning. And you know, he used to practice dialogues at that point, because he wanted to get into the character so much. He used to practice dialogues, like trying to get the dialect of how Kapil Dev actually speaks. He needed somebody who could give him feedback, how it's sounding and he also wanted audio feedback of what he was saying and how does it sound. He would never get out of that zone, of wanting to better himself in every single step."

Rajiv Mehra also oversaw the training of the other cast members. He also prepped Shahid Kapoor for the upcoming sports drama Jersey .