Finding the man behind the master

Jim Sarbh

Sometimes, an actor knows he is onto something special well before he starts shooting for the project. For Jim Sarbh, that was the case with Rocket Boys. His faith in the material was rewarded as the first season received wide acclaim. "We made the show with so much love and care. If the first season wouldn't have been appreciated, we would have been a bit heartbroken," he reflects.

As the second season of the Abhay Pannu-directed series drops online in a week, viewers will see Sarbh reprise his role of Dr Homi Bhabha. The upcoming edition will chronicle how the physicist joined forces with Dr Vikram Sarabhai and APJ Abdul Kalam, essayed by Ishwak Singh and Arjun Radhakrishnan respectively, to make India a nuclear power. Sarbh, who received glowing reviews for his portrayal of the dynamic physicist, says certain similarities with his on-screen character made it easier to pull off the part.

"For the role, I brought my entire 35 years of being alive, to the table. The immediate similarity [between us] was being privileged, being Parsi, having travelled abroad a lot, and having a global view. These simpler things made it easier [to become the character]. Besides that, you bring your own research and approach to life."

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The actor is glad that the SonyLIV series doesn't paint heroes as larger-than-life figures. Instead, it shows them as people, with their share of flaws, who fight for a cause. "In this show, all of us are heroes. These are two men who took all their privilege and worked for the betterment of mankind. That's brilliant. The show doesn't whitewash them; we tried to make them as human as possible."