Bollywood actor Ali Fazal had to change his name to Mir Fateh to enter the core interiors of Benares and Lucknow to shoot for the upcoming digital series Mirzapur.
No, it’s not the name of a character for his next film! Fazal had recently taken to fighting real underground matches in Mirzapur for which he had to register with a different name.
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Ali Fazal is among the young brood of actors who is getting immersed in his roles – a practice he follows religiously, one project after the other. In the web series Mirzapur, he plays the role of Guddu Pandit, a gangster set to take over a lawless land where the trade of arms and drugs is a normal life.
Ali went through an intensive physical transformation bulking up to look like a convincing and intimating gangster on screen. Essaying a character with grey shades, Ali submerged himself with utmost dedication into the filming of the series.
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Talking about his name-change Ali said, “I had to change my name to be able to enter these places. It’s been the scariest time while shooting for Mirzapur, yet adventurous. I am not saying this proudly and would not recommend this to others. To others I’d say, ‘try acting for a change and forget method’. I just chanced upon underground fight clans in Benares and Bhadohi during my research, where I picked up some tricks of the trade. It helped.”
Also, for doing his stunts right, Ali took to discovering underground fight clubs in Benares, Old Delhi, and Lucknow.
Created by Karan Anshuman and Puneet Krishna, and produced by Ritesh Sidhwani and Farhan Akhtar’s Excel Entertainment, Amazon Prime Video’s Mirzapur has been directed by Gurmeet Singh.