Akshay Kumar visits Kolkata to promote his upcoming film ‘Gold’ which releases on Independence Day

He was accompanied by Mouni Roy, his leading lady in the film and music composer Arko Pravo Mukherjee.

The film is about India’s first Olympic medal win as a free nation in the 'Games of the XIV Olympiad'  held in London in 1948.

'Games of the XIV Olympiad'  was the official name of the 1948 Summer Olympics, which was being held after a gap of 12 years owing to the outbreak of the Second World War. 

Produced by Ritesh Sidhwani and Farhan Akhtar, directed by Reema Kagti, ‘Gold’ is set to release on the August 15.

Akshay Kumar plays the role of Tapan Das, a Bengali hockey player, Mouni Roy plays his wife Monobina Das, the film also features prominent actors such as Kunal Kapoor, Amit Sadh, Vineet Singh, and Dalip Tahil.

For portraying the character of a hockey player Akshay Kumar and the entire cast trained with professional field hockey player and an ex-captain of the Indian national team.

On the struggles of playing a Bengali character, Akshay Kumar said, “I was in Kolkata for two years, 1984 to 1985, so picking up the accent wasn’t very difficult, I used to work in the New Market area, I knew a little bit of Bengali back then, so it wasn’t much of a struggle.”

August 12, 2018, marks the 70th anniversary of the first gold win in the Olympics as free India, so the release date of the film is especially significant.

When asked about the reason behind doing this film, Akshay Kumar said, “The motive of this film is not to promote a particular sport but to encourage the nation to take up any sport they like. Playing a sport is extremely important, sports is a very important thing for any country and specially for India as the health report of the country is not very good.”

Mouni Roy who is mostly known for her work in television, ‘Gold’ marks her debut as an actor on the big screen.

She shared her experience of playing a Bengali girl in her debut film as she is a Bengali herself, “It was a serendipitous co-incidence, I loved playing Monobina and had a great time shooting with Akshay sir.”

Talking about her gold moments in life Mouni said, “For me I can’t point a single gold moment, there are plenty of them, from my childhood to qualifying as a semi-finalist in a reality show, to the success of my television series Naagin, there are so many but the most significant is when Reema mam(director Reema Kagti) and Akhshay Kumar called me to the office and said that I got the part, I think that was my biggest gold moment.”

The soundtrack of the film has been composed by music director duo Sachin-Jigar, Arko Pravo Mukherjee and Tanishk Bagchi. There are  seven songs out of which four have been released till now.

Arko Pravo Mukherjee sung the Bengali version of the romantic track ‘Nain Ne Baandhi’ called ‘Bolte Parini’, and said, “Seeing Akshay sir dressed as a Bengali romancing a Bengali girl in a Bengali song, I think this is quite the highlight of my career.”

Akshay Kumar, whose father was a soldier in the Indian Army, said the reason behind taking up so many real life characters to portray on-screen is  him. He said he loves doing comedies too.

Akshay Kumar said he hoped that this film will make the audience feel the emotions that the Indian team went through as they won against the British for the first time as a free country, that too on the British home ground.

(Reporting by Tirna Chatterjee. Picture by Avishek Mitra)