Veteran actor Raghubir Yadav has revealed that he suffered a heart attack the night before shooting a key courtroom scene in Hunkkaar: The Roar. During a conversation with director Karan Kapadia, the actor looked back at the emotionally demanding sequence and spoke about getting into the skin of Baapji, a character who makes a startling confession. He also explained why the most powerful moments in a performance often come from within rather than from anything an actor consciously tries to create.
The testimony that left the cast and crew shaken
The director admitted that watching the scene left him overwhelmed, no matter how many times he returned to it. “It feels like a man like that should simply die. At that very moment, you feel as though the earth should split open so you can disappear into it and die. What else can you do? And it is not as though I was living through it alone. That character was living through it too, and I was living through it alongside him.”
I am telling you, I have died so many times while watching this entire scene,” he said, adding, “Every single time, the response is the same. He went on to explain just how deeply the testimony affected him: “Yes, and the kind of words she says…
Because i had just come back after cremating my son’s body, asked if the character’s grief had influenced his delivery, he replied, “Yes,. Karan recalled that Raghubir had suffered a heart attack the night before they were scheduled to shoot the courtroom testimony scene. The actor spoke about the incident with a touch of humour, explaining how the emotions in the scene came to him naturally. The words and emotions came from within, shaped by what his character was going through. “I didn’t create it at all. It came out from within on its own. Raghubir explained that he would have noticed if Baap ji were deliberately trying to manipulate the situation.
As Baap ji confesses to his crime, he says, “And during that heart attack, I was actually feeling a strange sense of satisfaction. When Karan asked how he had found the right voice for the scene, Raghubir said he had not made any conscious effort to create it. There was no need to create it,” he said. “If it had been a calculated move, I would have been able to tell from his words that he was trying to manipulate the situation,” he said.
The director revealed that he split the sequence into two parts. The first shows Meenu giving her testimony for the eleventh time, beginning with the words, “My name is Meenu Rawat. Karan also wanted to capture what was happening around him While Baap ji’s reaction was central to the scene. “Use the camera, use every trick in the craft. “Move in towards her to feel her, to feel the emotion of every character around us. When she gives her testimony, it is more about the process, but then everything stops. The silence takes over. But it happened to me.
As Meenu recounts what happened to her when she was 17, Karan chose to keep the camera still and close to her face, allowing her words to carry the weight of the moment. “I was 17 years old. This should not have happened to me when I was 17.
“I wanted to capture everything about the father,” he said. What can be done?” he said, explaining his approach to the sequence. Explaining why he avoided unnecessary camera movement, the director said, “I was very mindful that I just wanted to shoot it classically, without any movement, right up in her face, and feel that emotion.”
