'A Gentleman' being an action comedy, required Sidharth to do few stunts, urban rappelling being one of them.
The actor has always been extremely outdoorsy and loved playing rugby and foot ball growing up, apart from other sports. In the last few years, he also indulged in a lot of adventure activities while traveling overseas, including skydiving, deep-water diving, and sky walking.
For the film, the actor recently took to urban rappelling which is quite unheard of in India.
An abseil, commonly called a rappel, is a tool which enables a rope to run through it for a controlled descent from a vertical height. Rappelling from mountains and waterfalls is a common adventure sport, and it has now found its way to cities too -translating to urban rappelling where you replace nature with skyscrapers or monuments.
The actor shared, "For one of the most extensive stunts in my upcoming action thriller, A Gentleman, I had to jump from the terrace of a 60-storey building in Miami and since, I'm not too scared of heights, I was pretty excited."
He further added, "For safety reasons, I had to take a half-day special training to understand the buckle and harness. This helped me perform other stunts in the film better too. I've done 95 per cent of the stunts myself and a double was only used when security was an issue. Real shots always sell best with the audience."
Urban Rappelling was much more than the jump, it also focused on body posture, balancing body weight and learning the safest and smoothest landing process. The technique is used by climbers when a cliff is too steep and dangerous, which is similar for a free fall from a tall building. It was a great learning experience for the actor.
Sharing more inputs Sidharth said, "For the final shot, the camera followed me to the top of the building, where I had to buckle myself into a harness, then jump, slide down to a window, break it open with a few kicks and finally, enter the building. We were shooting at a live location on a sunny morning and there were cameras everywhere. Director-duo, Raj Nidimoru and Krishna DK, had a grand plan. Raj was to fly in a chopper from Miami beach to the top of the building as I jumped, taking the best top angle shots. DK was to capture the scale from the action choreographer's point of view. We had countless Hollywood films as a reference too."
The actor worked with Hollywood's best stunt co-ordinators -GA Aguilar (22 Jump Street, Now You See Me), Hugo Bariller (The Hunger Games), Dony Belluscio (Troy), Juan Bofill (Iron Man 3), Scott Burik (The Dark Knight Rises), James Carter (xXx: Return of Xander Cage), who is also part of the Russian arms crew in A Gentleman, Josh Lakatos (Logan), Cyril Raffaelli (The Transporter, The Incredible Hulk) and Giovanni Rodriguez (Bloodline). Bollywood action director Parvez Shaikh (Dhoom, Mary Kom, Ra. One) led a large Indian stunt unit with Bobby Gerrits (Housefull 2) and Sergey Nosulenko (Baahubali 2), among others.
The Film is sure to give Bollywood some never seen before stunts and we are more than excited.
'A Gentleman' revolves around the mistaken identity and unfolds facets like action, comedy, thrill, and romance.
The trailer of the film is garnering huge response and has built huge anticipation around the film. With its first song, the excitement is just bound to increase.
Produced by Fox Star Studios, 'A Gentleman' is directed by directors Raj & D.K and is all set to release on August 25th, 2017.