Exclusive: Boney Kapoor talks about his upcoming biopic on legendary football coach Syed Abdul Rahim starring Ajay Devgn—Read full interview

New Delhi: The Hindi Film Industry these days is coming up with many interesting biopics. Films such as Mary Kom, Dangal, MS Dhoni: The Untold Story and the latest Sanju have narrated tales that were untold. The journey of an unsung hero, legendary football coach Syed Abdul Rahim is all set to be turned in a feature film. The untitled film will star Ajay Devgn in the lead and was announced during FIFA 2018.

In an exclusive telephonic interview with ZeeNews.com English, producer Boney Kapoor answered a few questions that shed more light on the movie.

How does it feel to be associated with the story of an unsung hero?

"Well, unsung heroes should not remain unsung forever, the story needs to be told to people at large. Football is a global game, almost 200 countries play football and he was one of the pioneers of India and he had taken the country to its peak. In fact it won the gold medal in Asia in 1962 and then they were number 4 in the Olympics in Melbourne. So this is something which most of the people aren't aware. Football today is played only in pockets in the country. In those days it was played all over the country."

How did the idea of this film come about?

“This idea to me was brought by Akash and Joy. They came up to me and they narrated this idea that's when I jumped at it and I thought we could collaborate together and we thought this can make a fantastic film. This needs to be made ASAP.”

How does it feel to be working again with Ajay Devgn after a hiatus of so many years?

“Great! After a long gap, we are working. We had a fantastic journey in Kompany 2 and I hope the journey in this film will be even better than that. And he is absolutely a professional and is impressed by the script that we have worked out and I think it will be a great combination. The team behind is fantastic. Amit Sharma is the director, Saiwyn who has written Mary Kom, Parmanu is a part of the film and Ritesh is writing the dialogue.”

We are curious to know about the lead actress of the film?

“We are still looking...we want to make this film as authentic as possible.”

Talking about the lead hero of the film, Ajay Devgn, Kapoor said, “Ajay has an athletic body, he might not have done any sports film but he is absolutely fit and the right person to play this part.”

The film is jointly produced by Zee Studios, Boney Kapoor, Akash Chawla and Joy Sengupta. The biopic will be helmed by Amit Sharma with screenplay and dialogues written by Saiwyn Quadros and Ritesh Shah respectively