Actor Sivakarthikeyan portrays Major Mukund Varadarajan in Amaran, who during his deputation with the 44th Rashtriya Rifles battalion (44 RR), lost his life enacting a counterterrorism operation in Jammu and Kashmir. Mukund Varadarajan is nothing short of a National hero, and Amaran, a biographical film on this Indian army officer releases in theaters worldwide on October 31, 2024. 

Kamal Haasan's Raaj Kamal Films International (RKFI) has produced Amaran with Sony Pictures International Production. Leading upto Amaran's release, RFKI has been unveiling BTS footages and stories as a video series titled 'Evolution of Amaran'.  Episode 2 of this series dropped Friday, and actor Sivakarthikeyan reveals the physical transformation he underwent to play Mukund V. 

"Physically, Amaran was a very demanding film because we had to show a journey of 10 years through different looks. We shot Amaran in reverse. For the portion to play when he (Mukund) was a major, I went from 73 Kgs to 80 Kgs.", said Sivkarthikeyan in 'Evolution of Amaran', Episode 2. 

Reel Vs Real: Sivakarthikeyan in Amaran, Major Mukund Varadarajan

The actor continued, "After shooting all the portions in 80 Kgs, I came down to 75 Kgs for the Captain role. What was more demanding than this was the OT (Officers Training), training academy (OTA) portions. I came back to 72 Kgs for that." 

Real Vs Reel: Mukund Varadarajan as Captain, in OTA and Sivakarthikeyan in Amaran  

Director Rajkumar Periyasamy who has written and directed Amaran said of Sivakarthikeyan's transformation to Mukund V, "Amaran is a realistic portrayal about life in the army. More than just Indian Army, it's a particular unit that is involved with the daily operations of counter insurgency and counterterrorism. Not just Sivakarthikeyan, the enter set of actors playing his immediate team had to learn battle techniques like urban warfare. It is not a conventional war technique, but urban warfare deals with close quarter battles and they had to train in that." 

Sivakarthikeyan workshopped with the Mumbai-based Vicky Arora, who has previously trained Hindi film actors for war and Indian Army based movies. After that Sivakarthikeyan trained in Kashmir for a week with real army men, where he also got to train with real firearms. Director Rajkumar concludes,

"Even while shooting at real locations, he had to go to the gym, workout and then come for shoot. He was on a particular diet throughout for this film. Sivakarthikeyan's work offscreen also was a lot for this character and for preparing for this role." 

 

In Evolution of Amaran Episode 1, Sivakarthikeyan had said that it was the similarity between Mukund V and his later father, who was a police official, that made him take up the movie. "When I finished listening to Mukund Sir's story, the thought that I had was the story I had just heard should be witnessed by everyone on screen. I couldn't sleep the whole night after listening to the story, and I took sometime to mentally prepare myself to say yes to the role", Sivakarthikeyan stated. 

"Amaran transcends language by virtue of its valour, and content. Raaj Kamal Films (RKFI) is proud to have presented a movie which is long overdue", said Kamal Haasan in Episode 1. Amaran not just focusess on Mukund V's time in the military, but also covers his life with wife Indu Rebecca Varghese (played by Sai Pallavi). Actor Bhuvan Arora plays Sepoy Vikram Singh who also lost his life with Mukund V at the fateful Shopian encounter.